David Geffen

I’ve earned all this money. I’ve worked for it. I didn’t cheat anybody. I didn’t issue junk bonds and put people out of work. I earned it. And I live relatively modestly given my level of success and wealth.

There are so many people who are trying to make it in the music business. It’s a very open business, more open I think than any other area of show business.

If you said you had homosexual tendencies they sent you to a psychiatrist.

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

There were no role models, there were no other people I knew who were dealing with the same issues that I was dealing with. I had no idea if this was a stage I was going through or not. But I go to the draft board in Brooklyn and I fill out the form and there was a question that said ‘Do you have homosexual tendencies?’ and I check yes. But where-ever I was on line I’d see people I went to high school with and I was afraid of anyone knowing this about me so I kept on falling back into line and falling back into line. If you said you had homosexual tendencies they sent you to a psychiatrist. He said ‘I see here you’ve checked the box?’ And I said ‘yup’. He said ‘So do you think you’d have a problem serving in the armed forces?’ I said well you know ‘So many men.’ And I was out of the service.

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.

[on Popeye] If you watch it backwards, it has a plot.

I’m a big fan of ‘The Office’, both the British and the American versions.

[On Lou Adler] Lou really had a production deal called a label, whereas we had a real label. We had a great many artists, whereas he had very few. Lou also produced most of the stuff that came out on Ode. We were not producers.

I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

Being a Southern person and a blonde, it’s not a good combination. Immediately, when people meet you, they think of you as not being smart.

The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.

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

We’re ride or die. But I don’t accept the way we criticize and judge each other anymore. My personal growth doesn’t allow it.

We had to do this scene looking like heroes diving into the lake. they had a stand-in doing perfect dives on the first take. Then Stan, Clemence, And I tried, but none of us could dive in right, and we all looked really stupid.

My favourite part [of Pulp Fiction] is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. ‘Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: Bitch be cool.’ I love those lines.

I’m not that good looking… nobody is that good looking. I have seen a lot of movie stars, and maybe four are amazing looking. The rest have a team of gay guys who make it happen.

[on Sarah Palin returning to Fox News] First tonight, I and the rest of America woke up this morning in the worst way imaginable.

I can’t believe you recently had a baby. How do you do it? [pause] The baby starts to come down…and once that happens you can’t-it comes out. Whether you let it or not, the baby comes out. So that’s how I did it.

One of my theories is that men love with their eyes; women love with their ears.