Double Life Quotes

“The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Villette

“I talk about a life that I pretend to live and you ask me what I’m talking about. But when I finally tell, you regret finding out.”
― Harley Mei Kent

“After 50 years together as a couple:

"Look how fast the leaves are falling now," Alan says. "The trees will be bare in a couple of days. Do you realize that we have watched the leaves fall together for more than fifty autumns?"

I stand quietly, looking at Alan, letting his words sink in. I am suddenly so moved.”
― Norman Sunshine, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“We both grew up at a time when homosexuality was not even spoken about. There were certainly no books that could help a young person understand that two people of the same sex could build a happy, productive and loving life together. When we entered our 50th year, another same sex couple told us we were ‘an inspiration’, so we began to feel we had the responsibility to make what we’ve experienced available to others. We also wanted to show people who were not gay that our life was not unlike theirs. We are all pretty much the same, so we deserve equal protection under the Constitution.”
― Norman Sunshine, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“In the 1970s, when Norman Sunshine won an Emmy for the graphics and title design he had created for one of Alan Shayne’s television productions, “Alan and I agreed it was not a good idea for us to be seen together at an industry event,” he remembers. “Alan, after all, was one of the very few homosexuals who had such a powerful, high profile job, and who lived openly with a man. Homophobia had its adherents and some ruthless climber up the executive ladder would certainly love an opportunity to use it… 'Better to be seen with a woman,’ we were advised by a very trusted friend, ‘Makes everyone more comfortable.”
― Alan Shayne, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“Upon their meeting in New York in 1958: “We didn’t want to live together. We didn’t have any examples of what a good love relationship between two men could be. And there was always the problem of hiding so no one would know we were gay. There was no question that if I were known to be gay, living with another man, it would make it more difficult for me to get work as an actor.” - Alan Shayne, co-author, Double Life”
― Alan Shayne, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“As an artist in the 1960s, Norman Sunshine was able to maintain a moderately out lifestyle. But when the first exhibition of his paintings in New York brought on a profile in The New York Times in 1968, he was photographed in the apartment that he admitted sharing with Shayne. At both his advertising agency and Shayne’s television production company, the article was met with absolute silence.”
― Alan Shayne, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“As an artist in the 1960s, Norman Sunshine was able to maintain a moderately out lifestyle. But when the first exhibition of his paintings in New York brought on a profile in The New York Times in 1968, he was photographed in the apartment that he admitted sharing with Shayne. At both his advertising agency and Shayne’s television production company, the article was met with absolute silence.”
― Norman Sunshine, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“In the 1970s, when Norman Sunshine won an Emmy for the graphics and title design he had created for one of Alan Shayne’s television productions, “Alan and I agreed it was not a good idea for us to be seen together at an industry event,” he remembers. “Alan, after all, was one of the very few homosexuals who had such a powerful, high profile job, and who lived openly with a man. Homophobia had its adherents and some ruthless climber up the executive ladder would certainly love an opportunity to use it… 'Better to be seen with a woman,’ we were advised by a very trusted friend, ‘Makes everyone more comfortable.”
― Norman Sunshine, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“About their wedding on a beach of Nantucket, after nearly 50 years together as a couple: "After years of being who we truly were only in the privacy of our homes or with a few friends, we were out in the world, under the sky, no longer pretending.” - Norman Sunshine, co-author, Double Life”
― Norman Sunshine, Double Life: The Story of a Fifty Year Marriage

“You’re full of secrets, aren’t you?”
― Rae Knightly, Ben Archer and the World Beyond

“Superheroes in comics and in movies pull off that secret-identity shit all the time. But this isn't a movie, or a comic, and I am definitely not a superhero. Secret Identity? I can barely pull of the identity that I have. I won't do that to Nic. I won't put him in that situation.”
― Jackson Ford, The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind

“The key to leading a parallel life is being made to live one growing up.”
― Canty J

“A smile speaks a language of its own. It can be cryptic in its communication –hiding emotions beneath the surface. For every smile can mask years of tears, portray a lie and fool others into believing everything is fine. Don’t always take a person’s smile as a measure of their happiness … take a look into their eyes.”
― Brittany Burgunder

“How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.”
― Don Blanding

“Yes?”

“This is your fake emergency call.” Elijah sounded bored.

“Blah blah emergency blah.”

“Is everything okay?” Kalen bit out.

“Clearly not.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

“You’re a terrible actor. You only have one tone: angry.”
― Jane Washington, Tourner