David Geffen

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

If you said you had homosexual tendencies they sent you to a psychiatrist.

[‘Why don’t you manage me’ – Laura Nyro] Eventually I thought do I really believe that she could be one of the biggest stars in the world? Should I give up my career at this point in my life, where I’m doing so well, and put all my marbles in Laura’s [Nyro] basket? And I woke up one morning and I thought if you really believe it – go for it.

[On his mother’s adversity] She had a very difficult beginning… All of my mothers family were killed… and she came to America at the time of the depression. It was not an easy life at all.

[As a child] I want to earn a thousand dollars a week, have an apartment on Ocean Parkway, and drive a Cadillac convertible.

[On his mother] She certainly ran her own race… I thought my mother was nuts.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

The recipe of success is to study while others are sleeping, work while others are loafing, prepare while others are playing, and dream while others are wishing.

If you want to double your success rate, you need to double your failure rate.

To succeed, you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.

To be successful you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can’t just accept the ones you like.

[As a child] I want to earn a thousand dollars a week, have an apartment on Ocean Parkway, and drive a Cadillac convertible.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.

The uncommon man is merely the common man thinking and dreaming of success in larger terms and in more fruitful areas.

The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who do nothing and succeed.

I don’t think people get to be successful without ambition.

In the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.

You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.