Steven Shainberg Quotes

In every house, when the curtains are drawn, there's a story going on, and you never get to hear... You get the public side of things, the happy, smiling, social activities.

An abiding preoccupation for me is how much of our lives are invisible and unknown by other people, like the Chekhov story 'The Lady With the Little Dog.'

I do think, even though you are a public figure, I do think you should be entitled to your privacy, and I do think that there are things that go on in relationships and behind closed doors that are completely private.

You know, it's possible for two humans to be in a relationship without there needing to be some public reason for that relationship.

I like to keep my personal life private. I did read one of those stories, and it made it seem like just because I don't go out and I'm not the subject of tabloid photography, I've never had a relationship in my life, like if a relationship isn't documented by a picture, it doesn't exist. I don't want to talk about it.

There's no need to go out in public and give explanations. As long as you know what's going on between two different individuals and what kind of relationship they share, I don't feel that the world really needs to know about it.

I suppose people do sometimes not understand the seeming disparity between my onstage personality and my public personality in the press. But I feel that I am definitely a louder, more outspoken person with those I am close to.

It's impossible to know what everyone does behind closed doors. Even in families, you don't know sometimes what's going on.

What people do behind closed doors is certainly not my concern unless I'm there with them.

Telephone companies sell us voice plans because they know we're not going to use them. We're hiding from each other. People say that calls aren't efficient, but trying to bring efficiency into your intimacy can get you into a lot of trouble.

You can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.

Secrets of the heart are seldom news.

In our own presence, we all pretend to be simpler than we are: thus we take a break from our fellow human beings.

I've never written about sex in my diary. Like if you read my diary, you wouldn't think I'm a virgin, but you would have no idea what it is that I've actually ever done.

Literature: proclaiming in front of everyone what one is careful to conceal from one's immediate circle

When I say nothing, I say everything

Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses... Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people.

Much still remains to be learned about his sex life because the Hummingbird is quicker than the eye.

It strikes me how strange people are. You can see them every day - you can think you know them - and then you fшnd out you hardly know them at all.

How few friends would remain friends if each could see the sentiments of the other in their entirety.

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,- - This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be otherwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see thus, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!

Photography is all about secrets... The secrets we all have and will never tell.

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

It is better in some respects to be admired by those with whom you live than to be loved by them; and this not on account of any gratification of vanity, but because admiration is so much more tolerant than love.

What's so fascinating about people is what they don't show. People are masters at it; usually actors show too much.