David Geffen

[On Joni Mitchell] If I didn’t talk to her for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t miss her for a minute.

I’m going to go down and take care of the bill. I’m not going to embarrass you, just let me do it. I had such a great time, I just want it to be my treat. [On returning after several minutes red faced] They won’t take my check, I don’t know what we’re going to do. [Robertson said ‘David, what we’ve spent here, we’re going to have to do a lot of dishes.’] I’m going to call Prince Rupert [Loewenstein] and ask him to call the hotel and tell them I’m good for it. Or maybe he can pay the bill and then I’ll pay him back or something. [Prince Rupert vouched for his credit and the hotel agreed to accept Geffen’s check.]

[To a psychedelic rock sextet call Strawberry Alarm Clock] We’re going to get you six Ed Sullivan shows and we’re going to get you on Janis Joplin’s next tour. [After the meeting on being told by Schiffman ‘David, what are you doing? Six Ed Sullivan shows? Are you kidding? Janis Joplin wouldn’t piss on these people! We are not going to give them any Janis Joplin dates’] If they have another hit, we’ll get them one Ed Sullivan show, and we’ll get them a couple of dates on somebody else’s tour. I don’t care. And if they don’t have another hit, well, f*ck ’em.

It’s easy in music to tell what’s good. It’s hard to tell what’s bad.

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.

[On being told that he should be an agent with him having no acting ‘gifts’. And saying that you need to know absolutely nothing to be an agent.] I thought that’s the job for me.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don’t allow the happy moment, because they’re so busy trying to get a happy life.

I think happiness is love.

When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.

If you want to be happy, be.

You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.

One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.

The truth is that all of us can attain the greatest success and happiness possible in this life whenever we use our native capacities to its greatest extent.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

Happy is harder than money. Anyone who thinks money will make them happy, doesn’t have money.

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I’m alive, I must live and be happy.

I’m always smiling and happy.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.