David Geffen

My mother taught me to love my work. I learned everything about business from her.

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

[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.’

[In 1969] I thought how awful, this poor girl is being managed by someone who had no respect for her at all… I’ve been her agent since then.

In Los Angeles, they don’t want you to fail, they want you to die.

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

To me, they are equally important, as they represent a certain period in my life and times. With that in mind, it really is impossible to pick favorites.

I grew up watching fantastic mainstream comedies like ‘Porridge’ and ‘Rising Damp’. There are some mainstream things I love.

At one point, I was just perceived as only being angry, but now I’m being perceived as angry, peaceful, and spiritual.

I sleep with my baby blanket, Kiki, that my nana made for me.

[On drum machines] Fantastic to write with. They have their place, they’re terribly useful to the musician, but they’re just another tool. They never will replace a good drummer. A lot of the bands that use them, I call them typewriter bands because basically they program the sample sounds with no real dynamics, and that dynamics is very important. And the records come out sounding very flat and very 2-dimensional whereas something with real dynamics and a good drummer can add another dimension – depth – to the band and that’s why bands that play together when they’re actually making the record will always sound better.

I’m a lot taller than I look on television and younger, and for the role of David Brent I wore a fat suit under my shirt and trousers. Really I’m about 25 and about 6′ 1 tall. So that’s probably why you don’t recognize me in the street.

I feel like true icons shift music, uplift music, switch music, have the balls to take a chance.

I aspire to be Jack Nicholson. I love every single mannerism. I used to try and be him in virtually everything I did, I don’t know why. I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when I was about 13, and I dressed like him. I tried to do his accent. I did everything like him. I think it’s kind of stuck with me.

Do the NBC bigheads really pay attention to these message boards? Um, I don’t know if they read the message boards. I hope so, because I write fifty to a thousand fake posts a week, mostly, uh, saying that I’m really good and that no else is as good as me. So, I hope they listen to that because I’m trying to get a raise.

Time is the best teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all of its students.

People seem to think that if you didn’t do the same things you did 25 years ago, then, you know, then things have changed. But we’re not doing anything really any different. You know, we go out, we have a good time. Everybody has always had relationships all around the road.

I always dream about other musicians. And they’re never interested in hanging out with us. It’s like being at school and the bigger boys don’t want to play with you!

And now that you have a child you have to clean up your act, ’cause you can’t drink anymore. You can’t come home drunk and go, ‘Hey, here’s a little switch: Daddy’s gonna throw up on you!’

I think women are very powerful and I think we’re more powerful together than separate.

I remember when we were talking to one of the executives at the BBC. And he said, ‘Now hold on, this man (David Brent) is so incompetent why wouldn’t he be fired?’ and I said ‘Go and take a look around this building. Just go and knock on a few doors.’