Time & Perspective Quote by Anthony Holden

A journalist talking about another public figure, Holden slips into that peculiarly British register where understatement does the heavy lifting and gossip gets laundered as professional judgment. The line borrows a famous bit of media lore - the idea that silence, not scrutiny, is the real danger - but immediately undercuts it with a corrective: yes, attention is the currency, but not all attention is the same kind of cost.

The phrasing is telling. "Did once say" puts the aphorism at a remove, as if it’s been repeated at dinners often enough to become a slogan. Calling it "pretty token" shrinks the maxim down to something almost ceremonial: a saying you deploy because the situation expects it, not because it captures the mess of lived experience. Holden’s real interest is in reputational texture. "The coverage was very respectful" reads like an insider’s verdict, a quiet defense of the press as much as of the subject. Respectful to whom? By whose standards? The unstated implication is that the machine can be well-mannered while still being invasive.

Then comes the human detail that punctures the PR logic: "he rather resented the intrusions on his private life". That "rather" is doing a lot, softening what could be anger into something manageable, almost reasonable. Holden sketches the classic bargain of fame: visibility as validation, intrusion as tax. The final shrug - "but that was about it" - lands as a practiced minimization, the kind a journalist uses to close the file while hinting there’s always more in the drawer.