John Niven Quotes

I have always loved 'Stig of the Dump.' I think reading that book made me officially realise that I was a reader.

When I was a teenager I fell in love with TS Eliot.

I had been an abject fan of Robert Stone since the early eighties, when I borrowed a copy of 'A Flag for Sunrise' to read on a plane to Rome. I was twenty-something, with a first novel under my belt.

You can do the same thing with $20 million that you would do with $50 million. So at a certain point in your life and in your career, you realise that it's not about the money.

It's really not about the money. It's just about educating yourself.

I do think that people ought to have some control over their money, rather than the government, just mandating to them how they're going to invest their money.

I've been an inveterate reader of literary magazines since I was a teenager. There are always discoveries. You're sitting in your easy chair, reading; you realize you've read a story or a group of poems four times, and you know, Yes, I want to go farther with this writer.

I have a fantastic relationship with money. I use it to buy my freedom.

A woman's best protection is a little money of her own.

I make money, and I don't need money.

The books of C.S. Lewis had a very profound, indirect effect on me.

I want to figure out a way to not be stupid with money, then make a whole bunch of it, then I want to move to Outer Mongolia. I want to milk a yak. Maybe I'll just settle for a cow. Can you milk a bison?

I used to be really anxious about money. I got that from my parents. I still am, but for entirely different reasons.

For me, the biggest thing with money has always been independence - just the biggest.

I should have known growing up and not having any money ever that I should have kept every dollar that I had.

I had one year of struggle. My parents were always there, but I didn't want to rely on them. Now it's moving pretty fast. I'm not rich, but obviously this is fantastic. All I know to do with money is put it in a shoebox anyway.

The substitute for knowledge is money.

'Moby-Dick' really threw me. I read it when I was 14 and my best friends were books. It changed the way I looked at the world.

Making money is often more fun than spending it, though I personally have never regretted money I've spent on friends, new experiences, saving time, travel, and causes I believe in.

With the Supremes I made so much money so fast all I wanted to do was buy clothes and pretty things. Now I'm comfortable with money and it's comfortable with me.

When a person earns money, it makes sense if he spends it himself. It's a shame when a person earns money, and some strange funds spend it.

I had an allowance, but I had to do things around the house to earn it. I think I always wanted my own money.

I read 'The Hobbit' only when I was an adult. I had a lot of friends, teenagers, who discovered reading through 'The Hobbit,' but it wasn't something that I discovered until later in life.

The less of one's life one must exchange for money, the more freedom one may enjoy.

One of the true pleasures of my life has been the work of John Steinbeck. He was one of the people who turned my life around. I had no direct relationship with him, unfortunately.