David Geffen

I’ve earned all this money. I’ve worked for it. I didn’t cheat anybody. I didn’t issue junk bonds and put people out of work. I earned it. And I live relatively modestly given my level of success and wealth.

It’s terribly unfair that we should have to suffer like this.

Oh please. A Gay Mafia? This is so crazy. This is insane. I think he needs a psychiatrist. It’s so paranoid, and so crazy, and so irresponsible, and makes him look like such a nut. It’s beyond crazy. On a scale of 1 to 10 crazy, it’s 11… He’s made a fool of himself, and he’s made a huge failure of his life. To say you’ve been brought down by the Gay Mafia and its allies is as crazy as anything I’ve ever heard in my life… Did I mention his extraordinary homophobia?

Before you talk to people in music or entertainment or video games, or even gun control, you need to talk to psychiatrists.

Anybody who thinks money will make you happy, hasn’t got money.

[On Laura Nyro] Anything she wanted, I wanted to get for her.

This is serious business. But it doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun along the way.

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

Edison, to a greater extent than has ever been recognized, is the father of American industrial methods.

While I love technology and social media, a text or a tweet can never replace the real value of conversation.

A merchant who approaches business with the idea of serving the public well has nothing to fear from the competition.

Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.

I will build a motor car for the great multitude – constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. So low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.

[On Laura Nyro] I said to Laura ‘You know Laura, I think we should sell your music publishing company. I think right now is the right time you have three songs in the top ten this may never happen again and I think we can get a lot of money for it.’ And I made a deal with Clive Davis to sell Tuna Fish Music for $4 million. And that was a hell of a lot of money in 1969. It made her famous, it made her rich. It got people to listen to her music with her singing.

There’s no better friend to any merchant than a fair competitor.

Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.

Investors have very short memories.

Salesmanship, too, is an art; the perfection of its technique requires study and practice.

We started learning ourselves, understanding ourselves, reading, researching, going around the world and looking at what was defined as the very best.

No human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient [for] the duty of superintending the industry of private people … towards the employment most suitable to the interest of the society.