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.

If you said you had homosexual tendencies they sent you to a psychiatrist.

[On his early day in the music business] I stepped on a lot of toes… at that time.

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

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.

Anybody who thinks money will make you happy, hasn’t got money.

I remember flying in, driving down 101 in a cab, and passing by all these tech companies like Yahoo! I remember thinking, ‘Maybe someday we’ll build a company. This probably isn’t it, but one day we will.’

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.

Selling is our No. 1 job. Never get away from selling a lot of merchandise personally. The more you sell the more you learn.

Anyone who criticises me for talking about fair trade is a few pebbles short of a beach. Because everyone should care about it, just like everyone should care about the environment, because we all live here.

Cutting wages is not the way to recovery. Raise wages and improve the product.

It is regrettable that people think about our monetary system, and of our economic structure, only in times of depression.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

Acquiring the habit of note-taking is therefore a wonderfully complementary skill to that of listening.

The opportunity for an entrepreneur to start a company from scratch today is abysmal.

Depressions aren’t acts of God; like wars, they are the work of a small group of men who profit by them.

I live on a plane. I like to visit London. If I had to think where I could live if not Moscow, London would be my first choice, and second would be New York. In Moscow I feel most comfortable. I’m used to four different seasons; it’s difficult for people in London to understand. People brought up in Russia like my kids want to play in the snow.

Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

Mass production is craftsmanship with the drudgery taken out of it.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.