David Geffen

[In 1994] I wouldn’t offer $5 million to stop a book about me! It’s absurd. People will do anything for attention.

The think I remember most about Brooklyn was how much I wanted to get out of Brooklyn.

If you’re successful, people will talk about you. There’s nothing you can do about it. People make up stories.

I comfortable with everything – say whatever you want.

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.

The epiphany for me at William Morris was realizing, ‘They bullshit on the phone! I can bullshit on the phone too!’

If you need a machine and don’t buy it, then you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don’t have it.

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes.

First and foremost, I’m a real estate person. And that’s what I love the most.

It’s true we’ve got some fantastic clients. We’re very fortunate to be connected with the movers and shakers of all the global cities of the world. You can usually tell when we’ve got a client in here because their bodyguards are all over the place: two outside the front door, two in the lobby, one in the lift…

[On Calvin Klein asking him ‘Why don’t you call it Geffen Records?’] People in the record business just don’t do that. They come up with names likes Asylum, Capricorn, or Island. [Calvin Klein said if you put your own name on the door ‘You’ll get laid more.’]

Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

They encouraged me to always look for the good in people instead of assuming the worst and trying to find fault.

Chris and I came from nothing. We’re selfmade. We started with nothing, so we have nothing to lose. And we have everything to gain.

My motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.

Your business, and your brand, must first let people know what you care about, and that you care about them.

The epiphany for me at William Morris was realizing, ‘They bullshit on the phone! I can bullshit on the phone too!’

The way out of the depression is to start spending and doing things.

Work is our sanity, our self-respect, our salvation. The day’s work is the center of everything.