David Geffen

It’s an idiotic thing that you have to be a college graduate to be an agent.

Happy is harder than money. Anyone who thinks money will make them happy, doesn’t have money.

[In 1990 on the president of MCA calling and saying ‘We’re going to make you the biggest offer this company has ever made, and I’m going to send it to you by messenger right now.’] It’s 1990. Send me a fax.

We all acquire damage as infants and children and we work on removing those scars all of our lives. You won’t heal everything, but what’s important is the work.

[On his first job in the mailroom of William Morris a casting agency] It was the first time in the my life that I thought ‘I can do that.’

Why not blame the libraries? They’re full of violent books.

But charity is a very complicated thing. It’s important to find an area where you can really help and you can feel the results. Charity is not like feeding pigeons in the square. It is a process that requires professional management.

Everyone’s got their own reason. Some believe it’s because I spent some of my childhood in the far north that I helped Chukotka, some believe it’s because I had a difficult childhood that I helped Chukotka, some believe it’s because I stole money that I helped Chukotka. None of these is real. When you come out and you see a situation and there are 50,000 people, you want to do something. I haven’t seen anything worse than what I saw there in my life.

I’ve always been fascinated by activists, people who will devote their life to a cause, people who go to India and to Africa and put their life in jeopardy to do what they believe is right.