David Geffen

My greatest fear is getting bored.

[In 1969] I think lyrics have always been important to any serious writer of music.

Some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.

[On his first job in the mailroom of William Morris a casting agency] It was the first time in the my life that I thought ‘I can do that.’

In Los Angeles, they don’t want you to fail, they want you to die.

Most of the artists were trying to make a living, trying to get laid, trying to figure out who they were. They weren’t trying to change the world. That’s what other people put on them. I knew all those people. I knew them all, intimately and well. Bob Dylan. I would say that Bob Dylan is as interested in money as any person I’ve known in my life. That’s just the truth.

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

I don’t hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don’t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.

Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.

We know everything about our clients – if they like their dressing gowns heated, what colour flowers they like, if their chef works left-handed – we know everything and we incorporate it into our work for them.

I have a theory that the best advertisements come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.

Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.

The way I run my business seems to be easier than the way I run my life.

You can’t tell me you can make any system or country work with low wages and high prices, and high wages with high prices don’t mean anything when the prices eat up the wages and don’t leave anything over.

A brand is two words: the ‘Promise’ you telegraph, and the ‘Experience’ you deliver.

I myself never make any notes. Usually, if I write something down, I can’t read it afterwards.

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

No one should buy on reputation alone. They should come and see it and inspect it, feel it and touch it.

It was always my practice to train salespeople under my direct supervision, and to treat children with the utmost consideration.

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.

As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for.