David Geffen

[On Laura Nyro] I said to Laura ‘You know Laura, I think we should sell your music publishing company. I think right now is the right time you have three songs in the top ten this may never happen again and I think we can get a lot of money for it.’ And I made a deal with Clive Davis to sell Tuna Fish Music for $4 million. And that was a hell of a lot of money in 1969. It made her famous, it made her rich. It got people to listen to her music with her singing.

When we first started DreamWorks, I said to Jeffrey, ‘We ought to call this new company the Spielberg Brothers. Anything Steven thinks is important, we want to invest in.

[To his ex-entertainment lawyer Eric Eisner who resigned from the presidency of The David Geffen Company in 1991 just as a deal was about to be made with some Japanese] Keep your stock. [Eric sold it.]

Do any of us really have a clue? We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Or what word will come up in a conversation that will change our lives. You can be in the shower and scrubbing under your arm and find a lump that wasn’t there yesterday. I’m doing things here and now. Life is evolving. Every day life evolves.

This is between us! You know this is the best thing for the company.

You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! You’re crazy!

Health is certainly extremely important, and we’ve done a number of things at Facebook to help improve global health and work in that area, and I am excited to do more there, too. But the reality is that it’s not an either-or. People need to be healthy and be able to have the Internet as a backbone to connect them to the whole economy.

I think Viagra is wonderful if you need it, if you have medical issues, if you’ve had surgery. I’ve just never needed it. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if there were an anti-Viagra, something with the opposite effect. I’m not bragging. I’m just lucky. I don’t need it.

Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we’re scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.

To be honest, part of me doesn’t want to talk about being sick because I want it to all be behind me, but I know I have to.

We can’t let people down when they can’t get any medical care, when they’re sick and don’t have money to go to a doctor. You help them.

I say there’re no depressed words just depressed minds.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

I don’t regret opening up about what I went through [with depression]. Because, it sounds really cliche, but I have had women come up to me and say, ‘It meat so much to me.’

The patient is not likely to recover who makes the doctor his heir.

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.

I have a form of Parkinson’s disease, which I don’t like. My legs don’t move when my brain tells them to. It’s very frustrating.

My brain and my heart are really important to me, I don’t know why I wouldn’t seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth. I go to the dentist. So why wouldn’t I go to a shrink?

You don’t see the mental illness: It’s not a mass; it’s not a cyst. But it’s there. Why do you need to prove it?

I’ll drink water. Sometimes tomato juice, which I like. Sometimes orange juice, which I like. I’ll drink different things. But the Coke or Pepsi boosts you up a little.

For four to six months at a time, I would barely eat. I lived on a diet of Melba toast, carrots, and black coffee.