David Geffen

I thought I’d be a success even back in the mailroom at William Morris. It was just inconceivable to me I couldn’t win it all.

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

[on Steve jobs] Our relationship was based almost always on him calling up and asking, ‘Is this a good deal?’ I’m not in his business, and I wasn’t trying to be. I was just a guy who admired him a lot and was flattered he wanted my advice.

It’s an idiotic thing that you have to be a college graduate to be an agent.

We got killed in Newsweek.

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

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Justice? – You get justice in the next world. In this one you have the law.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for months or years. A competent attorney can delay one even longer.

The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it.

My focus now is to be the best justice I can be.

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.

You get a lawyer whether you’re in a military tribunal or whether you’re in a federal court, number one. The attorney general decided that the court with the biggest – with the greatest venue, with the best jurisdiction was the New York court. That was the right decision to make.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.