Quotes from work
No Exit

Jean Paul Sartre Original title Huis clos (French, 1947)

No Exit is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The original title is the French equivalent of the legal term in camera, referring to a private discussion behind closed doors. The play was first performed at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in May 1944. The play begins with three characters who find themselves waiting in a mysterious room. It is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked into a room together for eternity. It is the source of Sartre's especially famous quotation "L'enfer, c'est les autres" or "Hell is other people", a reference to Sartre's ideas about the look and the perpetual ontological struggle of being caused to see oneself as an object from the view of another consciousness.

“I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It
always made me want to do just the opposite.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

“You are -- your life, and nothing else.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

“I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

“One always dies too soon — or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

On meurt toujours trop tôt - ou trop tard. Et cependant la vie est là, terminée : le trait est tiré, il faut faire la somme. Tu n'es rien d'autre que ta vie.
Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“Your scare me rather. My reflection in the glass never did that; of course, I knew it so well. Like something I had tamed… I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

“Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

“I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit (1944)

“Hell is—other people!”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Variant: Hell is others.
Source: No Exit

“As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Inès, describing her path to Hell, Act 1, sc. 5
Source: No Exit (1944)

“So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is—other people!”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Garcin, Act 1, sc. 5
Variant: So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: Hell is other people.
Source: No Exit (1944)

“I will take it all: tongs, molten lead, prongs, garrotes, all that burns, all that tears, I want to truly suffer. Better one hundred bites, better the whip, vitriol, than this suffering in the head, this ghost of suffering which grazes and caresses and never hurts enough.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“We are in hell and I will have my turn!”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Inès warns Garcin and Estelle not to make love in her presence, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“If only you knew how little I care. Cowardly or not, as long as he is a good kisser.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Estelle on Garcin, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“It is better; heavier, crueler. The mouth you wear for hell.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Inès to Estelle after she has applied lipstick, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“You have stolen my face from me: you know it and I no longer do.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“Your crystal? That’s silly. Whom do you think you are fooling? Come on, everyone knows that I threw the baby out of the window. The crystal is shattered on earth, and I do not care. I am no longer anything but a skin, and my skin does not belong to you.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Estelle to Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“Criminals together. We're in hell, my little friend, and there's never any mistake there. People are not damned for nothing.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Act 1, sc. 5
Variant translation: Among murderers. We are in hell, my dear, there is never a mistake and people are not damned for nothing.
No Exit (1944)