David Geffen

There are so few great talents, it’s always a discovery when you find the one.

If you’re successful, people will talk about you. There’s nothing you can do about it. People make up stories.

The concept known as bal tashchit – ‘Do no destroy’ – has a special significance in Jewish tradition…We are constantly being warned in our faith that the capricious, thoughtless, wasteful destruction of the elements and creatures of the earth is wrong…We should remind ourselves daily of our responsibility to all aspects of creation.

HIV infection and AIDS is growing – but so too is public apathy. We have already lost too many friends and colleagues.

When I go to see Iron Man 3, I’m not as enthralled as I was when I saw The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The think I remember most about Brooklyn was how much I wanted to get out of Brooklyn.

I am a devout musician.

I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn’t making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don’t understand the part of money in running a band.

People complain about the music industry, but this is a great time to be a musician.

To compose music, all you need to do is remember a tune that no one else has thought of.

Once you have been bitten by the Jazz bug, it is not a choice anymore.

To the person who uses music as a medium for the expression of ideas, feelings, images, or what have you; anything which facilitates this expression is properly his instrument.

If you don’t know what it is, don’t mess with it.

I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve; I write about them.

People who are meant to be drawn to your music will find you.

I’m… a rather simple person with a limited talent and perhaps a limited perspective.

There are four qualities essential to a great Jazzman: taste, courage, individuality and irreverence. These are the qualities I want to retain in my music.

A good quartet is like a good conversation among friends interacting to each other’s ideas.

If you’re going to make a mistake, make it loud so everybody else sounds wrong.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be Jazz.

Jazz music has got to have that thing. You have to be born with it. You can’t even buy it. If you could buy it, they’d have it at the next Newport festival.