Neil Oliver Quotes

I want to look beyond the legends, to find the real story of Scotland. And it's every bit as thrilling.

My father's example taught me self-reliance, to make my own luck, and to work to make things happen.

After I graduated from the University of Glasgow, I was a self-employed archaeologist going from dig to dig around Scotland, and it was not well-paid. I was an excavator, not a lecturer as well, so paying rent on a flat was tricky. In the end I decided to retrain as a journalist as I couldn't see a future in it.

My father was a self-employed, commission-only salesman. He sold double-glazing and fitted kitchens, amongst other things. As he never declared himself unemployed, there was never recourse to benefits, so if money was tight, money was tight. It taught me that we were a closed unit, and that we had to be resourceful.

I have always been quite careful when I have been approached to do a television project to have the option of writing the accompanying book.

My wife has always supported me in my career, even when there were times when it was more sensible to get a job. It has been her confidence in me that has helped enormously.

It is security that I crave and money provides security. What is that old line about money? "Some is good, more is better and too much is just right."

I live in a perpetual present. I don't look back and I don't look forward. I just live from week to week.

I trust to luck. I am planning to be a millionaire before I die but I don't have a plan as to how that will happen.

I delivered leaflets for my dad and was paid £5 per thousand, which was slave labour.

Television came looking for me; it was never a plan to become a presenter.

It took me a while to get established - success didn't happen overnight.

I worked on local papers, before taking a job as a webmaster with a very well known telecommunications company in London, as I thought the internet was the future.

People looking at what I do from the outside would think it was a secure world I live in, but it isn't. Just because you had a series last year, doesn't mean you will have one next. But I am quite happy with that.

I'm wary of the new contactless ways of paying. The idea of paying with your phone is a little worrying: I have lost more than one over the years.

I find it so easy to read qualified commentators who are 180 degrees opposed to each other.