David Geffen

We all die unhealed

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

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 thought Laura’s record was going to be huge… It was not successful it sold something like 20 or 30,000 albums. Laura lacked a certain level of ambition and didn’t really want to do the things that people do to become known. So I thought I’d better get people to record these songs and make them hits so that people will see that she’s a great songwriter.

HIV infection and AIDS is growing – but so too is public apathy. We have already lost too many friends and colleagues.

[To his ex-entertainment lawyer Eric Eisner who resigned from the presidency of The David Geffen Company in 1991 just as a deal was about to be made with some Japanese] Keep your stock. [Eric sold it.]

While several parties have expressed interest in buying the company, I’m not shopping it, I haven’t sold it and I’m not about to sell it.

No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn’t.

About half my time is spent on business operation type stuff.

It took only 10 minutes to do Chelsea deal with Roman Abramovich but I had to Google him first … I wasn’t sure if Jeremy Beadle was going to jump out.

If I had asked them what they had wanted, they would have said a faster horse.

The greatest teacher I know is the job itself.

Everything I do in life is framed through the view of a businessman. That’s my instinct. If I go into a pharmacy to buy shaving cream, then I’m going to look for the best deal on shaving cream.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

The headline is the ‘ticket on the meat.’ Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.

I get my design inspiration from Christian Dior and Chanel.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.

We decided not to show One Hyde Park til we were 100% ready. A lot of people open the doors too early.

Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

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.