Tom Bower > Quotes

“At the precise moment set out in the timetable, Meghan arrived at the chapel in a Rolls-Royce, the same vehicle that had carried Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee and the Duke of Windsor’s wife, to her husband’s funeral in 1972. The official’s choice was deliberate. As she stepped out of the limousine, Meghan’s bridal train was caught. The escorting officer who opened the door offered no help. The explanation foreshadowed what was to come. After her rudeness during the rehearsal the previous day, explained an officer, no one had any feelings of goodwill towards the bride.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors

“opinion she was being ‘maliciously’ depicted by her discarded friend ‘as a conniving social climber who had her sights on snagging a prince ever since she was in high school.’361 Priddy’s assessment”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors

“For evil to succeed, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.”
― Tom Bower, Maxwell: The Final Verdict

“As she would later admit, she ‘occasionally set up a paparazzi photo or let info slip out to the press’.135”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“young Harry was known to his mother’s staff as a contrarian who did the opposite of what he was told. As he grew up he became increasingly undisciplined. His father and his wider family watched helplessly as the boy refused to behave and rejected education. After he unsuccessfully tried to pass his entrance exam to Eton, his relations recognised that Harry’s ignorance was spilling over into arrogance. That reality was concealed during Diana’s funeral.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“The Sussexes were cheered for urging manufacturers to donate free vaccines to poor countries. ‘The ultra-wealthy pharmaceutical companies are not sharing the recipes to make them,’ Harry told the crowd. ‘Recipes’ is the word he used.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors

“Meghan has outgrown you, just as she outgrew me.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Directing the other girls to bow and intone to her ‘Your Royal Highness’, she had been influenced after watching a tape of Princess Diana’s fairytale wedding.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Invariably, identical facts provoke starkly different interpretations.”
― Tom Bower, Branson

“Maria Pollia, her school’s theology teacher, remembered that Meghan was ‘unusually compassionate’. Thomas Markle could also take credit for the observation by the school’s head teacher,”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“my name is recognised, my star meter is rising, my life is changing.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“In her fantasy, the unknown actress cast herself as a celebrity coping with the chore of recognition and being pestered for photos.117 In reality, little had changed since she left school.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“wellness. During her time in Malta, she did not speak”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors

“I choose them both because these worlds can, in fact, coexist.’158”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Robert Maxwell had always yearned to manage a publicly quoted company, not just for the prestige but, more pertinently, to enable him to play with other people’s money. The Maxwell Communication Corporation was that tool, marred though it was for him by a colossal defect: the legal requirement for public accountability.”
― Tom Bower, Maxwell: The Final Verdict

“oppressed’ – the victims of Anglo-American imperialism. Labelling Israel uniquely as a ‘racist state’ was the climax of twenty-five years of lobbying started by Labour MP Peter Hain, the former student anti-apartheid campaigner, who accused Israel of oppressing the Palestinians even more than South Africa had oppressed blacks under apartheid. Over that period, and especially during the year before they met in Durban, the anti-Zionists’ language had become increasingly anti-Semitic. At the beginning of 2001, the groups that were to meet in Durban had celebrated the final collapse of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. To their satisfaction, the Palestinians launched a second intifada, seeking to kill as many Israelis as possible. Eight months later, at the climax of the Durban conference, thousands of activists and delegates marched through the city waving placards reading ‘Kill All Jews’ and ‘The Good Things Hitler Did’.”
― Tom Bower, Dangerous Hero: Corbyn’s Ruthless Plot for Power

“Although Thomas knew that Meghan’s letter had not influenced the executives’ decision – there was no evidence that her letter was even read – he encouraged her conviction that the change was her personal victory.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Booked for the film, she arrived in London amid acrimony that her demand for first-class transatlantic fares and luxury accommodation had been rejected.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors

“This type of work feeds my soul.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Meghan, said Oprah, had been the target of ‘constant criticism [and] blatant sexist and racist remarks by British tabloids’. As she spoke, the screen was covered by a spread of apparently racist headlines in the Daily Mail and other British newspapers. The word ‘niggling’ was highlighted as causing offence, although critics noted the sixteenth-century Scandinavian origin of the word has no connection to race.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors

“married and a child was born in Malta in 1862. To give the story greater attraction, Mary Bird was said to have been employed as a cook in 1856 at Windsor Castle. Harman had no reason to question Meghan or her suggestion that she travel to Malta with Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne. Elle”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War between the Windsors

“speech”
― Tom Bower, Dangerous Hero: Corbyn’s Ruthless Plot for Power

“Don’t give it five minutes if you’re not gonna give it five years.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Meghan said that at the early meetings she knew nothing about Harry. Without a blink, she declared that she had done no research about Harry before the blind date.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors

“She always fought, as Sonia Ardakani noticed, ‘tooth and nail for the things she wanted in life’.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Tom Junior invented the story that his father had won $750,000 in the California State Lottery. There was no lottery ‘win’ but Thomas did give Tom Junior money to start a flower shop and bought Samantha a car.”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“He’s like Stanley Baldwin,’ thought Travers: ‘I’d rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles around my neck.’ Just”
― Tom Bower, Boris Johnson: The Gambler

“There are serious doubts that Meghan saw any violence, not even the minor looting in a store near the ABC studio. In her absence the riots spread to Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards. After five days the curfew was lifted and they returned to Los Angeles. Meghan drove past burnt-out buildings, though no houses near her home were damaged. More than 20 years later Meghan recalled a different experience: ‘I remember the curfew and I remember rushing back home and on that drive home, seeing ash fall from the sky and smelling the smoke and seeing it billow out of buildings and seeing people run out of buildings carrying bags and looting.’22 She also saw ‘men in the back of a van just holding guns and rifles’. Equally memorable was a familiar tree outside her father’s home ‘completely charred. And those memories don’t go away.’23”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“Marrying a ‘mercurial, dramatic, shouty and difficult’ actress who demanded a role in his films had been a challenge.110”
― Tom Bower, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors

“In his mind, force should never be used to stop the objectives of IRA, Palestinian or ISIS terrorists.”
― Tom Bower, Dangerous Hero: Corbyn’s Ruthless Plot for Power