David Geffen

I think everybody thought I was crazy that I quit my job and started a management company in which I was managing one client – Laura Nyro.

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.

The bullsh*t is more interesting than the truth.

[On his mother’s adversity] She had a very difficult beginning… All of my mothers family were killed… and she came to America at the time of the depression. It was not an easy life at all.

It’s very easy for me to thank everyone for the incredible contribution they’ve made to my life.

It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t.

Sometimes if you’re lucky, someone comes into your life who’ll take up a place in your heart that no one else can fill, someone who’s tighter than a twin, more with you than your own shadow, who gets deeper under your skin than your own blood and bones

You can repeat the mistakes of your parents’ marriage or you can go out of your way not to repeat them.

Lasting love and forgiveness are two sides of the same page.

I’ve always said, ‘If you need Viagra, you’re probably with the wrong girl.

The only other person who has a clue about what this is, the good, the bad, is your partner.

Don’t base a relationship on sex. You need love, compassion and caring. Then sex can be a reflection of that.

Your experience will be a lesson to all of us men to be careful not to marry ladies in very high positions.

I think when you get married, it’s not a totally free ride – it’s not without its unglamorous periods and its fights and its angry noons and silent dawns or vice-versa.

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.

My dad used to say, ‘You wouldn’t worry so much about what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.

I don’t understand how in my parents’ age, it was ’til death do us part, and in mine it’s ’til cheating do us part, ’til lying do us part, ’til chemistry do us part, ’til disagreements do us part, ’til boredom do us part, ’til cowardice do us part. I just want what my parents have, that part.

Never put more in a relationship than you can afford to lose.

You know the funny thing, I don’t get along with rich people. I get along with the middle class and the poor people better than I get along with the rich people.

Usually I’m on top to keep the guy from escaping.

Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep burning, unquenchable.