David Geffen

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

Things that seemed simple and superfluous had some meaning, maybe it wasn’t a great meaning, it didn’t shake the world…

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

We were all young and we were all inventing our careers. I was very close to Jackson, just as I’d been very close to Laura Nyro. With each person I had a unique relationship.

I had worked for Warner Brothers most of my adult life, and I was totally enthralled by the world that this guy had created. So I bought the house. And I sold Warner Brothers all the scripts, the Oscars, the mementoes for $3 million, which they’re going to use for a museum. I sold some of the rest of the stuff for $7 million. And I kept millions of dollars of furniture and silver. So I was really paying about $34 million for prime Beverly Hills property.

Starting a new studio was a thrilling challenge, but it was more stressful than fun. I never took a salary, a bonus or expenses. I learned never to do anything you’re not passionate about.

So I’ve realized that this outfit is part of Richard Petty now. And the real Richard Petty is still hidden behind these glasses.

Everyone has an idea that they think would be a great movie. Everyone has a cousin who they think you should work with. Everyone has a warped vision of Hollywood and what success in Hollywood is like. That you love cocaine and that you spend every night in orgies with models. If only it were true.

The only way I could get comfortable around people was to make them laugh. I was an obedient girl, and humor was my one form of rebellion. I used comedy to deflect. Like, ‘Hey, check out my zit!’ – you know, making fun of yourself before someone else has a chance to.

It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.

You have to be quite stupid to act.

Being a sex symbol was rather like being a convict.

Before you talk to people in music or entertainment or video games, or even gun control, you need to talk to psychiatrists.

Someone stole my shoelaces once from my shoes. I still wear them and never put laces in them – they’re like my trademark shoes now!

I don’t think there’s any way it could have failed. We don’t know failure in this band. We didn’t know failure. We got to know it a little after awhile but at that time there was no such word.

I can’t say I was. I wasn’t not a (Harry Porter) fan. I hadn’t read any of the books or anything. I read The Goblet of Fire when I was doing the other film, and I really liked that. I got through it in about two days. I’d say I’m a pretty big fan now.

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.

I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society…unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.

My mother always taught me, even my dad, just never let other people’s opinions of you shape your opinion of yourself. And I never have and I never will.

An awful lot of gay pop stars pretend to be straight. I’m going to start a movement of straight pop stars pretending to be gay.

I’m a Leo with something odd rising.