David Geffen

[On being told that he should be an agent with him having no acting ‘gifts’. And saying that you need to know absolutely nothing to be an agent.] I thought that’s the job for me.

Is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?

My greatest fear is getting bored.

You have an idea of the way you think it is, and it’s not that way at all, it’s something else.

[On Joni Mitchell] If I didn’t talk to her for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t miss her for a minute.

Asking me to come work here is the dumbest idea you ever had. It has been a waste of a year.

Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.

Very early it was noticed that I had a good memory; therefore I was insistently tormented with learning everything by heart.

Education – lifelong education for everyone – from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers – is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.

Do not neglect your life skills, which should include a healthy dose of financial education.

I call myself a teacher because they want me to call myself a teacher, but actually, what I’m doing is I’m studying.

In the past, there has been a stigma surrounding community colleges, where they were seen as a less viable option because they are not four-year universities. I know differently and so do the millions of people across the country who have received an affordable, quality higher education at community college.

Most of all we need an education system which will create an educated mind. This is a mind not simply a repository of information and skills, but a mind that is a source of creative skepticism, characterized by a willingness to challenge old assumptions and to be challenged, a spaciousness of outlook, and convictions that are deeply held, but which new facts and new experiences can always modify. It means an educational system which does not simply equip the students to adjust to society, but which enables the student to challenge and to modify, and at times reject, if necessary, the received wisdom of his elders.

No one will ever get anywhere in this world unless he becomes a teacher, one who can show others how to do things.

Because of the flexibility that community colleges afford, many students do not have to choose between an education and fulfilling other responsibilities – they can do both.

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes.

There is no education like adversity.

Education is the key to opportunity in our society, and the equality of educational opportunity must be the birthright of every citizen.

Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

In teaching the children at Greenfield Village, we are trying to get back some of the solid McGuffey qualities.