David Geffen

[To Robertson] I think you should move to California. Malibu is paradise. You can always change your mind. Why don’t you just let me put this together? I’ll get you a house in the Malibu Colony.

[‘Why don’t you manage me’ – Laura Nyro] Eventually I thought do I really believe that she could be one of the biggest stars in the world? Should I give up my career at this point in my life, where I’m doing so well, and put all my marbles in Laura’s [Nyro] basket? And I woke up one morning and I thought if you really believe it – go for it.

I just needed a job. Before being hired as an usher at the CBS Theater, I didn’t even know there was a show business.

Some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.

I never went to business school. I was just bumbling through a lot of my life. I was like the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

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?

It’s the group sound that’s important, even when you’re playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.

I still love the whole history of Jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

Jazz music grabs you to the point where it never lets you go until the very last breath.

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.

I can’t understand guys who just have to have your autograph. What do you do when you get home, take it out and look at it?

In Europe they look upon jazz as art. In America it’s a diversion. Somebody opens a restaurant and installs another band off to the side. People don’t listen.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

Give it a good go, try to have fun at it, try to pass on some good notes and some good sounds to your fans, and I don’t think you will have wasted your time.

That’s the thing about jazz: it’s free flowing, it comes from your soul.

I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales.

I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.

I thought I had swell ideas and wonderful musicians but no one else did.

Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.