David Geffen

[On his mother] She certainly ran her own race… I thought my mother was nuts.

I don’t think people get to be successful without ambition.

[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.’

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

I don’t think people get to be successful unless they have very strong egos.

This Velvet Mafia thing is just another homophobic, nasty kind of thing that jealous queens make up.

Burdening people with debt is an old deal not a new deal.

When most people ask about a business growing, what they really mean is growing revenue, not just growing the number of people using a service. Traditional businesses would view people using your service that you don’t make money from as a cost.

Clock watchers never seem to be having a good time.

I get my design inspiration from Christian Dior and Chanel.

I think I’ve got the best staff in television.

Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.

I don’t hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don’t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

The worst of times often create the best opportunities to make good deals.

The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.

My dream was to have a steady job, was not to be on the road, to exist like a guy that goes to work as a mechanic or a carpenter and knows he’s gonna have a job.

There’s no better friend to any merchant than a fair competitor.

My definition of an executive’s job is brief and to the point. It is simply this: Getting things done through other people.