Origin of "Hell is other people"

Posted by Bruce Kahl on December 03, 1999

In Reply to: Origin of "Hell is other people" posted by liz bragg on December 03, 1999

: Does anyone here know the source of the quotation
: "Hell is other people"? Is it Sartre, or someone else,
: and if so who and in what work do I find it. Thanks Liz

Sartre's most popular play is undoubtedly the one-act drama No Exit (1944; Eng. trans., 1947), which is a discussion of such familiar negative existentialist themes as bad faith, self-destruction, and the impossibility of interpersonal relationships. It is in this play that Sartre's famous line, "Hell is other people," occurs.