David Geffen

My life is a success – I am a happy man.

[on Bill and Hillary Clinton] Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.

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

I’ve always thought that each person invented himself… for whatever reason, through whatever circumstance, through whatever he is gone through… that we are each a figment of our own imagination… And some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.

I never felt I was too protective. I felt I was functioning as a dam against the river of sh*t that comes pouring down on artists, and it was a job that I took very seriously.

I’ve always thought that each person invented himself for whatever reasons, for whatever circumstances, through whatever he has gone through, that we are each a figment of our own imagination. And some people have a greater ability to imagine than others.

Legal aid is fundamentally important in a democratic, civilised society.

I don’t respond in any way to personal abuse that is thrown at me.

The financial industry, that means Goldman Sachs, if managed properly, will calculate the potential cost to itself if a loan goes bad, but not the impact on the financial system, which can be severe. This inherent deficiency of markets is well known.

Usually, by and large, the U.S. foreign policy, like other major states, is driven by the dominant domestic forces. That’s kind of natural. And the dominant domestic forces are, of course, the corporate sector. That’s not in question.

I’m sure corruption in Chechnya is minimal.

With regards to the infrastructure, these 11 stadiums. Of course, we spent a lot of money on this and it is imperative that all of this infrastructure, I completely agree, it must work and above all work toward the development of sport on a large scale.

You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.

Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.

Top [U.S.] planners recognized that if we can control Middle East oil we can control the world. If you have your hand on the spigot you can control what other people do, whether we use it or not.

I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.

Think of the feudal system. You had kings and princes and bishops and lords and so on. They for the most part did not want power to be totally concentrated, they didn’t want total tyrants.

The new nationality law declares Israel to be the nation-state of the Jewish people, downgrades the status of Arabic and formally authorizes Jewish-only communities….What is new is primarily the elevation of these racist principles to the Basic Law – constitutional status.

Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.

Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it’s necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything – that’s part of how you teach people they can’t do anything, they’re helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them.

In the middle of a recession, where we’re just climbing out of it, where the economy -unemployment is still at 9.7 percent, the idea of raising taxes and reducing spending is a prescription for disaster.