David Geffen Quotes

103 David Geffen Quotes

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I didn’t really have any idea of what Hollywood was except that it was a place where the made movies.
David Geffen

My dream was to make $1,000 a week, have a Cadillac convertible and an apartment on Ocean Park where I would’ve thought that would be nirvana.
David Geffen

[On being told that he should be an agent with him having no acting ‘gifts’. And saying that you need to know absolutely nothing to be an agent.] I thought that’s the job for me.
David Geffen

[On his first job in the mailroom of William Morris a casting agency] It was the first time in the my life that I thought ‘I can do that.’
David Geffen

I used to be able to read memo’s upside down… It was like going to the college of the entertainment business.
David Geffen

I probably didn’t handle things as diplomatically as I should.
David Geffen

I totally believed that I could bring her to the world.
David Geffen

[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.
David Geffen

[On Laura Nyro] Anything she wanted, I wanted to get for her.
David Geffen

[‘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.
David Geffen

I think everybody thought I was crazy that I quit my job and started a management company in which I was managing one client – Laura Nyro.
David Geffen

I thought Laura’s record was going to be huge… It was not successful it sold something like 20 or 30,000 albums. Laura lacked a certain level of ambition and didn’t really want to do the things that people do to become known. So I thought I’d better get people to record these songs and make them hits so that people will see that she’s a great songwriter.
David Geffen

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…
David Geffen

[On Laura Nyro] I said to Laura ‘You know Laura, I think we should sell your music publishing company. I think right now is the right time you have three songs in the top ten this may never happen again and I think we can get a lot of money for it.’ And I made a deal with Clive Davis to sell Tuna Fish Music for $4 million. And that was a hell of a lot of money in 1969. It made her famous, it made her rich. It got people to listen to her music with her singing.
David Geffen

[On learning negotiation skills from his mother] People would roll their eyes when my mother walked into the store. She was a nightmare in that regard.
David Geffen

[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.
David Geffen

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

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

There was no word dyslexia when I was a kid. You were just dumb.
David Geffen

[On school] Not only did I know that I wasn’t one of the smart kids in the class, but so did everyone else.
David Geffen

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

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.
David Geffen

If you really believe it – go for it.
David Geffen

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