David Geffen

[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.

I was sleeping on a couch in my brothers apartment, and one day this guy walked over and said ‘How would you like to be in a movie?’ And I said ‘Yeah!’ I was an extra in ‘Explosive Generation’.

No one’s asked me. If somebody felt there was a job I could actually do I would consider it — not out of any ambition to be in Washington, but I do want to rise to the occasion of serving there if warranted.

There are so few great talents, it’s always a discovery when you find the one.

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

Oh please. A Gay Mafia? This is so crazy. This is insane. I think he needs a psychiatrist. It’s so paranoid, and so crazy, and so irresponsible, and makes him look like such a nut. It’s beyond crazy. On a scale of 1 to 10 crazy, it’s 11… He’s made a fool of himself, and he’s made a huge failure of his life. To say you’ve been brought down by the Gay Mafia and its allies is as crazy as anything I’ve ever heard in my life… Did I mention his extraordinary homophobia?

[Babies are] a loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

When I’m happier and healthier, my family is happier and healthier, and it affects how I interact with my friends and the people I work with.

I was probably 10 or 11 when I saw that, and sort of started thinking, ‘You know what? Marriage is an option. Having a family is an option. And going to school and getting your education and building your career is another really viable option that can lead to happiness and fulfillment.

How do you build a relationship when you’ve hardly shared a word but suddenly share a child? How do you love a daughter you don’t see for nearly two years? When does she become your daughter? How does she become your daughter?

[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.

I have real good parents. They poor. They have regular, poor jobs and what not. They real good people and what not; I was just raised in a bad society.

I had grown up without a father and that is why it was so important to me that my children would never be in need of anything.

The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being’s mental and physical health is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time, because it’s too hard…To put it loosely, the reason why kids are crazy is because nobody can face the responsibility of bringing them up…

I have not been a good father, but no father has loved his children more. Like my father, I decided the best thing I could do for my kids was work and provide. Fortunately, I’ve been able to do that. Unfortunately, my work was on the road, and that’s meant a life of one-nighters.

I know some people say it’s not the best to work with your family, but I have never understood that because it’s always worked so well for me.

When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.

Maybe that’s all that family really is, a group of people who all miss the same imaginary place.

My father was very energetic; my mother was very energetic. He lived to a very old age, and so did my mother. I believe that I just have it from my father, from my parents. They had wonderful energy.

People say: “Oh yeah, jobs for the boys”. I wish. You’ve got to fight even harder with a family like mine.

I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is. The same thing is true in the work that I do. It’s all about me feeling where people are. So that’s why I try to be really present, even when I’m on a rope line. I never take for granted my interactions with people. And it’s never black-and-white. I’m usually reading the crowd, reading the people that I’m with. I guess if this role has changed me, it’s improved my ability to do that. I’ve gotten better at sensing where people are at any given time.