David Geffen

I see my role as a baby doctor helping people deliver their babies. I felt the same way in the music industry.

I never went to business school. I was just bumbling through a lot of my life. I was like the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

The concept known as bal tashchit – ‘Do no destroy’ – has a special significance in Jewish tradition…We are constantly being warned in our faith that the capricious, thoughtless, wasteful destruction of the elements and creatures of the earth is wrong…We should remind ourselves daily of our responsibility to all aspects of creation.

[On Calvin Klein asking him ‘Why don’t you call it Geffen Records?’] People in the record business just don’t do that. They come up with names likes Asylum, Capricorn, or Island. [Calvin Klein said if you put your own name on the door ‘You’ll get laid more.’]

There has always been a tremendous obsession with television and movie stars, and with the people involved with the business.

Should I give up my career at this point in my life… and put all my marbles in Laura’s [Nyro] basket?

Our modern industrialism, changed to motives of public service, will provide means to remove every injustice that gives soil for prejudice.

If your dreams don’t scare you they are too small.

I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.

It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.

No matter what his position or experience in life, there is in everyone more latent than developed ability; far more unused than used power.

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

If you need a machine and don’t buy it, then you will ultimately find that you have paid for it and don’t have it.

Employers only handle the money – it is the customer who pays the wages.

Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman – not the attitude of the prospect.

We pay attention to every demographic in every country, so we’re going to focus on building things that teens are going to like, and we’re also going to focus on building things that other folks are going to like.

One client didn’t want to go out so had us build him a nightclub in his house.

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.

It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most.

Paying good wages is not charity at all-it is the best kind of business.

When people are ‘stung’ in false investment schemes there are three causes; greed of something for nothing; sheer inability to know their mind; or infantile trustfulness.