Quotes from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Man is what he wills himself to be.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“I’ve dropped out of their hearts like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart – and you’ll see how nice I can be.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them?”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Love or hatred calls for self-surrender. He cuts a fine figure, the warm-blooded, prosperous man, solidly entrenched in his well-being, who one fine day surrenders all to love—or to hatred; himself, his house, his land, his memories.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Let it crumble! Let the rocks revile me and flowers wilt at my coming. Your whole universe is not enough to prove me wrong. You are the king of gods, king of stones and stars, king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of man.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“You see, I'm fond of teasing, it's
a second nature with me—and I'm used to teasing myself. Plaguing myself, if you prefer; I don't tease nicely.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“At an age when most children are playing hopscotch or with their dolls,you, poor child, who had no friends or toys, you toyed with dreams of murder, because that is a game to play alone.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“It's your weakness gives them their strength. Mark how they dare not speak to me. A nameless horror has descended on you, keeping us apart. And yet why should this be? What have you lived through that I have not shared? Do you imagine that my mother's cries will ever cease ringing in my ears? Or that my eyes will ever cease to see her great sad eyes, lakes of lambent darkness in the pallor of it will ever cease ravaging my heart? But what matter? I am free. Beyond anguish, beyond remorse. Free. And at one with myself. No, you must not loathe yourself, Electra. Give me your hand. I shall never forsake you.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Good digestions, the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom—ah the soul-destroying boredom—of long days of mild content.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Höderer: You don't love men, Hugo. You love only principles.
Hugo: Men? Why should I love them? Do they love me?
Höderer: Then why did you come to us? If you don't love men, you can't fight for them.
Hugo: I joined the party because its cause is just, and I shall leave it when that cause ceases to be just. As for men, it's not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.
Höderer: And I, I love them for what they are. With all their filth and and all their vices. I love their voices and their warm grasping hands, and their skin, the nudest skin of all, and their uneasy glances, and the desperate struggle each has to pursue against anguish and against death. For me, one man more or less in the world is something that counts. It's something precious. You, I know you now, you are a destroyer. You detest men because you detest yourself. Your purity resembles death. The revolution you dream of is not ours. You don't want to change the world, you want to blow it up.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Outside nature, against nature, without excuse, beyond remedy, except what remedy I find within myself.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“a wise person can want nothing better from life than to pay back the wrong that has been done him.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“She is dearer to me than life. But her suffering comes from within, and only she can rid herself of it. For she is free.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Wait a minute, there's a snag somewhere; something disagreeable. Why, now, should it be disagreeable?...Ah,I see; it's life without a break.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“And you know what wickedness is, and shame, and fear. There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“You didn't succeed. Well, what of that? There's nothing to prove, you know, and the revolution's not a question of virtue but of effectiveness. There is no heaven. There's work to be done, that's all. And you must do what you're cut out for; all the better if it comes easy to you. The best work is not the work that takes the most sacrifice. It's the work in which you can best succeed.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Neither sad nor gay is the desert—a boundless waste of sand under a burning waste of sky.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Mientras que tú piensas: agua pura, querida agua pura, solo estaré a medias en este lugar, solo a medias seré culpable, seré agua pura allí contigo.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“Tú serás lo que quieras: agua pura, agua sucia. Te reconocerás en el fondo de mis ojos como tú te deseas.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

“¿Quieres creer en mí? Te querría entonces más que a mí mismo.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from No Exit and Three Other Plays

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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