David Geffen

Of course it scored well! It was all fags and old people!

There were no role models, there were no other people I knew who were dealing with the same issues that I was dealing with. I had no idea if this was a stage I was going through or not. But I go to the draft board in Brooklyn and I fill out the form and there was a question that said ‘Do you have homosexual tendencies?’ and I check yes. But where-ever I was on line I’d see people I went to high school with and I was afraid of anyone knowing this about me so I kept on falling back into line and falling back into line. If you said you had homosexual tendencies they sent you to a psychiatrist. He said ‘I see here you’ve checked the box?’ And I said ‘yup’. He said ‘So do you think you’d have a problem serving in the armed forces?’ I said well you know ‘So many men.’ And I was out of the service.

Some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.

In the field of art, to be able to have lunch with Kirk Varnedoe is thrilling. I met him at Si and Victoria Newhouse’s dinner one night. Barnett Newman’s widow was there. That’s the part of me that’s a fan. Like when I was a kid and went to the Brooklyn Paramount. Well, my interest has expanded, and it’s not just rock-and-roll.

When we first started DreamWorks, I said to Jeffrey, ‘We ought to call this new company the Spielberg Brothers. Anything Steven thinks is important, we want to invest in.

This is between us! You know this is the best thing for the company.

Salesmanship is limitless. Our very living is selling. We are all salespeople.

Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.

I suspect that many corporations have begun to understand that they have an important role to play in the lives of their communities, and that allocating funds to support local groups helps them discharge that function and also burnish their image.

[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.]

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.

The keystone of successful business is cooperation. Friction retards progress.

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

An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation.

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

I will build a motor car for the great multitude – constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. So low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.

Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

There is a time and place for all things to be successful. There is fate and destiny and opportunity, and you need all three things in line at the same time.

In the long run people are going to buy the cheapest and the best article no matter where it is made.