I wound up becoming an A&R man at London Records in the 1990s, during the boom of Britpop, the last great gold rush of the music industry. I saw incredible greed and terrible behaviour. I was greedy and terribly behaved. – John Niven
In your teens and twenties, death doesn’t exist. In your thirties, you glance down the road occasionally. But then in your forties, it becomes a full-time job looking the other way. – John Niven
It has long been known that if you want to see me turn into a raging, snarling beast, then all you have to do is use any combination of the words ‘chill out,’ ‘chilling,’ or – my maximum red rag – ‘chillax.’ – John Niven
It strikes me as one of nature’s greatest jokes that the types of food we all like to eat more than anything (especially in winter) are the very things that cause the most insane weight gain – mounds of fluffy mashed potato, hot, thickly buttered toast, huge, steaming bowls of pasta, great big… actually, I’ll stop there. – John Niven
I understand that some people like certain things more than others, but by the time you are an adult, you really should be able to sit down and eat pretty much anything. – John Niven
Future generations of economists will look at the trickle-down theory in much the same way we now look at witch burning, slavery, and the Sinclair C5. – John Niven
I love watching the Oscars and seeing everybody saying all that ‘it’s an honour just to be nominated’ rubbish. Then you see their faces when the split screen comes up as the winner is announced – the losers are all smiling through gritted teeth and looking as if they just swallowed half a pound of soor plooms. – John Niven
I love being a writer. I have a great life. I get up in the morning and pad around in my dressing gown and listen to Radio 4. – John Niven
Don’t get me wrong: there are aspects of buying music online that I love. Instantly being able to hear a song the moment it crosses your mind? Where’s the downside? However, I do feel for those too young to remember the thrill of going record shopping. – John Niven
I love my children and care greatly for their future. If they decide they just want to loaf around for a bit between the ages of 16 and 25, that’s perfectly fine by me. I did it, and I’m doing fine, thanks. Sometimes ‘leaving kids to their own devices’ is the best thing for them. – John Niven
I love England. I live and work here. My children have grown up here. I see no conflict between this and praying that my countrymen in Scotland never have to live another day under Conservative rule from London. – John Niven
There are precedents for what happens when societies allow the divide between rich and poor to get so huge that it stops being funny and starts becoming a sick, blood-boiling joke. If you had a Tardis, you could go back to 1917 and ask the Russian royal family how it was all going. – John Niven
I was on the dole once. I loved it. It was only for a couple of years, when I was 20 or 21 and playing in a band. Back then, this was something young folk did – you got your rent paid, a little bit of money to live on, and you loafed around, wrote songs, rehearsed and dreamed of playing Wembley Stadium. – John Niven
I use computers and the Internet every day of my life, and yet I have absolutely no idea how they work. I’m like a labrador watching ‘The Matrix.’ – John Niven
I’m something of a black belt at break-ups. I have had two long-term relationships in my life, both of 10 years, both resulting in children, and both very much over. Things end. It is how you manage them being over that’s key. – John Niven
I love Twitter, and my little corner of it is heavily weighted in favour of women, many of them writers: Caitlin Moran, India Knight, Lauren Laverne, Grace Dent, Deborah Orr, Marina Hyde, Suzanne Moore. I look at that list of names and think, ‘Here comes the fun – fun that knows its way around a dictionary.’ – John Niven
I spend a fair bit of time in Los Angeles, and there is much I love about the place – the weather, the food, the beaches and the golf. And a few things I don’t. Like the way an enormous number of mentally ill people seem to be forced to live on the streets with little or nothing in the way of government assistance. – John Niven