David Geffen

I must have had a dozen jobs and I got fired from all of them.

My mother was an entrepreneur… She found being on relief humiliating. She built this business from scratch… In 1951 my mother opened this store…

Everybody was recording Laura Nyro’s songs and all of a sudden she was a very successful song-writer. And beginning to become hot. She had three songs in the top ten at one time…

[On being partners with Laura Nyro in Tuna Fish Music (Laura’s favorite food was Tuna Fish)] We became partners in this new publishing company.

[In 1969] I thought how awful, this poor girl is being managed by someone who had no respect for her at all… I’ve been her agent since then.

There are so few great talents, it’s always a discovery when you find the one.

We let Willow cut her hair. When you have a little girl, it’s like, how can you teach her that your in control of her body? If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out into the world. She can’t cut my hair, but that’s her hair. She has got to have command over her body. So when she goes out into the world, she goes out with command that it’s hers. She is used to making those decisions herself. We try to keep giving them those decisions until they can hold the full weight of their lives.

My daughters are the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

A few years after my first son was born, he wanted to know how we chose his name, so I began reading him the story of Noah’s Ark.

I was loved dearly by my father but I was never so precious that he didn’t think that I could be in there right at the table.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them.

You have to love your children unselfishly. That is hard. But it is the only way.

People say: “Oh yeah, jobs for the boys”. I wish. You’ve got to fight even harder with a family like mine.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.

It’s her first grandchild, so she’s really, really, really excited. I guess my mom is a little more stressed out than me.

I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family. I have a wonderful relationship with my brother and sister; this makes me feel that I know always where I belong.

My son has a big Christmas problem – what do you buy for a father who has everything and you’re using it?

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring, quite often the hard way.

I am lucky because my family are comfortably off. My father has his own glass business.

My father would always praise me. He always thought I was the smartest person