I think the above is a true enough statement for those who are introverted. However, there is a dispute over who said it, and this blog has drawn angry misplaced comments — not for quoting it directly, but for quoting it within a quote from Jonathan Rauch’s 2003 article on introversion. Rauch attributed the quote to Sartre, and this has upset a writer who insists all over the Internet (including M. Simon’s post on an unrelated subject) that Sartre only said “Hell is other people,” and while I am not a Sartre scholar, he may well be right.
The post I wrote last year was not about Sartre, but about introversion. I happen to agree with the sentiment expressed, and I like the quote enough to repeat it, because for a true introvert I think it is more than fair to say that Hell is other people at breakfast. If Sartre said “Hell is other people,” then in logic that would include other people at any place or time, including at breakfast. So by adding “at breakfast,” Sartre’s sentiment is actually watered down. Whether that is as bad as Bismarck’s widely misattributed sausage quote, I do not know.
But I will say that just as I agree that for most people laws (and the political process) are like sausage, I also think that for introverts Hell is other people at breakfast. (As well as at most times and places.)
Such observations are either true or not. They do not become more true when attributed to famous people, whether Bismarck, Sartre, Churchill, or George Carlin. As I noticed someone slightly reattributing the Hell/breakfast quote to Oscar Wilde, I found what Wilde said:
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
Having to be brilliant at breakfast (or to be subjected to brilliance) sounds like pure hell to me. “Breakfast is Hell” anyone? (Lots of people said that, possibly channeling Sherman…)
It is important not to misattribute, though. Great men should never be misquoted, nor should their thoughts be trifled with, not even in jest.
For example, the Fuhrer never said baby.
As you can see, a correction is demanded at 6:23, and an attempt at enforcement begins at 8:25:
And I am delighted to agree with what Sartre never said.
AFTERTHOUGHT: Is it OK to violate Godwin’s Law in jest? (I need to know, as I seem to be a multiple repeat offender….)
Comments
16 responses to ““Hell is other people at breakfast””
I hadn’t a clue when the commenter started in on me. And finally he explains himself in the seventh or ninth comment. And then I found it wasn’t even me he was interested in.
Eric, and i sent you 123 emails too and you opted to NOT REPLy to any of them? I guess that is the new etiquette online. SMILE.
But that said, thanks for the post and the correction. It is NOT that I MAY be right about Rauch’s faux quote said in jest, which 99 percent of his readers in 2003 to 2012 never understood was a faux quote, I AM right. Sartre never never ever said that. Jon was joking. Kidding. His entire 2003 piece in ATLNTC was humorous, sort of. So thanks for taking me seriously, Eric. Most people don’t.
And thanks for heads up on the Oscar Wilde quote! O life! O breakfast!
IMHO, it is okay to misquote, misquotes and faux quotes and malapropisms make life interesting, so more more! But it is also important for the NYtimes of all places, to make sure they don’t repeat faux quotes from 2003 without checking. That is all that this is about. I am a media atomic typo fact checker proofreader volunteer overseas. I do this as a hobby. Nothing in it for me but fun. And insight into how the damned Internet is causing havoc with reality adn truth 24/7. KONY 2012 anyone? Don’t get me started.
@Filbert said: [“I don’t care what anybody says.
The above, er, discussion (for want of a more accurate word) . . .
Now THAT’S comedy. “Who’s on first?”]
Dan E. Bloom on March 19th, 3012 adds:
filbert, et al, — yes the above discussion is just what i was driving at when this discussion began, and speaking of firsts, i live in Taiwan where Jason Hu is the mayor of my city, former ROC diplomat, fluent in English, about 60, and he often begins his public speeches for visiting Western dignitaries with the Hu’s on First joke, too. Humour travels well, just as faux Sartre quotes do. The HIOPAB quote discussed above in fact appeared on the front page last week of a New York Times weekly edition appearing in Taipei AND Beijing, so now 1.3 billion Chinese go to sleep believing that Sartre said that cute breakfast thing, which Rauch was just making up out of whole cloth.
And if all this is COMEDY, and I agree, THAT is all I was driving at and Eric has answered all my queries now. Ciao! PS: THE NYT will issue a correction on the fake Sartre quote soon. Fingers crossed (at breakfast)! Danny, Tufts 1971, exile in Asia, [1949-2032 timestamp]
Carmen Michael in Australia noted on her blog now: ”Correction: Sartre said ‘hell is other people’ not “hell is other people at breakfast” as was originally reported. Correction thanks to Dan Bloom. ”
Eric, due to internet sloppiness AND the lovely truthiness of the fake quote spreading everywhere, even on t-shirts now, I am going one by one to every blog in the known blogiverse and asking for a correction. So far, Carmen agreed. You were second. Thanks for the vote of confidence!
and ERIC, re “this blog has drawn angry misplaced comments [by Danny Bloom]— not for quoting it directly, but for quoting it within a quote from Jonathan Rauch’s 2003 article on introversion.
CORRECTION: I was not and am not and never am ANGRY. I was just having fun with a faux quote discovery, but never in anger. I am humorist first and foremost, and introverted as well. Look back in anger? Not me, never. I just posted in the spirit of internet comraderie and i am still tryign to get Jon Rauch to answer my emails but he is far too busy to bother i guess. A top editor at Atlantic did agree to pass on my notes to Jon, but so far, no correction at ATLANTC. the internet, note should be lowercased, is a strange place. Thanks for giving me a place to vent my humor!
Kirk and Eric, in today’s Chicago Tribune, column by Mary Schmich mentions your blog here:
”We need an antidote for bad quotes”
Chicago Tribune? – March 20
Bloom’s lament over the faux Sartre quote is a good excuse to pause and take stock of how we use quotes of any kind in an online age. Got a speech to give?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-schmich-0321-20120321,0,2374115.column
Got a speech to give?
Frequently.
ATLANTIC MONTHLY – DEPARTMENT OF CLARIFICATION — by EDITOR JAMES BENNET (2033 AD)
ATLANTIC MONTHLY
– DEPARTMENT OF CLARIFICATION
Dear Readers, It has come to our belated attention that a humorous article by Atlantic writer Jonathan Rauch in 2003 contained a tongue in cheek faux quote snarkily attributed to John Paul Ringo George Sartre: “HELL IS OTHER PEEPS AT BREAKFAST.”
OF COURSE, John Paul et all (sic) never said that. He said HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE AT BRUNCH.
THE ATLANTIC regrets the fact the most people online since 2003 did not get the joke and have kept repeating it odd infinitum add nausea museum until the fake quote has now become germane and de rigeur across all party lines.
We will no longer publish Jonathan Rauch until he explains the joke to everyone in a public confession, and hopefully before he snags the coveted MacArthur Genius Award he keeps going on and on about.
— James Bennet, editeur par excellence
re SARTRE faux quote story in NYTimes and Chicago Trib and Poynter,……. the NYT editing staff tells me just now: ”Dear Danny,
We are publishing a correction on the Sartre gaffe this week. Thanks for pointing out the error to us.
Cheers,
Tom
CASE CLOSED. Game over. Bravo
Sartre certainly did say, or at least write, “Hell is other people.” It’s one of the last lines in his play “No Exit”:
GARCIN: 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!
There is no evidence, however, that Sartre ever extended that to include any meal whatsoever.
OTOH, look closely and carefully at what Rauch said:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/2696/
***QUOTE***
Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say “Hell is other people at breakfast.”
***END QUOTE***
I’m now wondering, does the above really quote Sartre as saying exactly that? Or is he qualifying the Sartre quote the way introverts would partially apply it?
Sure, what Sartre said was “Hell is other people.” But Rauch prefaces his remarks by saying introverts are not misanthropes, which means they probably don’t think ALL people are hell. So if they think that Hell is “other people at breakfast” isn’t that saying they go along with Sartre, but only so far?
(Bloggers are not warriors, though some of us do go along with Sherman as far as to say “War is hell at the keyboard.”)
I’m now wondering, does the above really quote Sartre as saying exactly that? Or is he qualifying the Sartre quote the way introverts would partially apply it?
ERic, you are right and you have solved the riddle: “Sure, what Sartre said was “Hell is other people.” But Rauch ***prefaces [SIGNALS HIS INTENTION IN] his remarks by saying introverts are ***not misanthropes, which means they probably don’t think **ALL people are hell. So if they think that Hell is “other people at breakfast” isn’t that saying they go along with Sartre, but only so far? ”
Exactly, well said, Eric. Jon did signal to readers that he was kidding and that was borrowing the Sartre quote and ADDING to it in a snarky savvy cool humorous way, BUT most people read too fast online and the blogosphere took over. So it is NOT Jon’s fault. Nor is it anyone else’s fault for picking up the faux quote without knowing the backgrund. This is a learning curve for all of us. Moi, aussi.
”Hell is other people who do not have a sense of humor. ” – Daniel Halevi Bloom (1949-2032)
New York Times ”correction” issued today March 27 on the Jean-Paul Sartre faux quote that appeared in the newspaper’s intl weekly edition in 26 nations on March 13, 2012
from the NEW YORK TIMES …(this is what I saw today with my own eyes in my local paper here in Taiwan) quote unqote
CORRECTION
A Lens column earlier this
month about introverts and
extraverts misquoted the
French philosopher Jean-
Paul Sartre. The correct
quote is “Hell is other peo-
ple,” not “Hell is other peo-
ple at breakfast.”
===============
…………
March 27 issue of the New York Times Weekly (international editions in 26 nations)correcting misquote
from March 13 issue ‘at breakfast.”
[The misquote was gaffed/goofed by Kevin Delaney, staff writer at the Times, who apparently
picked up the misquote without knowing it was a misquote from reading a recent
Huffington Post post about Jonathan Rauch’s humorous 2003 take on the real Sartre quote
and Susan Cain’s book about introverts and extraverts. Kevin has opted not to respond to
this antiblogger’s dozen emails requesting an explanation, and neither has Dr Rauch or any
of his spokespeople at THE ATLANTIC magazine, although Atlantic writer James Fallows did
say he would pass on my query letter to Dr Rauch, who he knows personally.’
New York Times correction: Hell is not other people at breakfast
by Craig Silverman
Published Mar. 28, 2012 9:06 am
The New York Times International Weekly, an 8 to 12-page supplement inserted in newspapers around the world, published this correction earlier in the week:
A Lens column earlier this month about introverts and extroverts misquoted the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The correct quote is “Hell is other people,” not “Hell is other people at breakfast.”
The New York Times International Weekly corrects a mangled Sartre quote.Though not available online, I received a photo of the print version of the correction from Taiwan-based journalist Dan Bloom. (The original, incorrect item is placed to the left of the correction.)
Bloom is the eagle-eyed reader who spotted the Sartre misquote last week and requested a correction. (Poynter’s Andrew Beaujon previously wrote about this quote, which has taken on a life of its own.)
Bloom has since written several articles and blog posts about how this misquote made it into circulation. Here’s him writing for The Wrap:
This is how things work in the Internet Age.
A witty writer in Boston sets up a fake quote from the late Jean-Paul Sartre back in 2003 in an article about introverts and extroverts that was published in the Atlantic Monthly online, and almost 10 years later the fake quote — “Hell is other people at breakfast” — is still going strong on blogs, emails and bonafide websites.
Very few people have bothered to check if the quote is correct, since the correct quote from Sartre’s famous play “No Exit” is actually, “Hell is other people.” In French, Sartre wrote it out as, “L’enfer, c’est les autres.”
The writer in question is Jonathan Rauch, who playfully altered the Sartre quote in a piece about introverts and extroverts. Bloom notes that the Rauch quote was reused in this recent Huffington Post blog post about personality types, which Bloom believes was consulted by the Times writer who used the incorrect quote in the paper.
Not your grandfather’s internet: False ‘quotes’ travel far due to ‘anything goes” mindset
This is not your grandfather’s internet: In 2003, a witty writer named Jonathan Rauch penned an essay about introverts for The Atlantic magazine in Boston titled, “Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group.”
Rauch, a strong liberal supporter of gay marriage and married himself, confessed to being an introvert to his husband’s extrovert, and noted, mostly tongue-in-cheek: “Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with [the late French existentialist Jean-Paul] Sartre as far as to say ‘Hell is other people at breakfast.’”
The key words to notice are “as far as to say.” This was Rauch’s barely-audible whisper that he was lifting a real quote and
demolishing it with a witty wise-crack. The real line in Sartre’s play ”No Exit” is “L’enfer — c’est les Autres” (Hell — is other people.).”
Nothing at all about breakfast, pardon my French.
But the Atlantic’s humorous 2003 rewrite has taken on a life of its own in 2012 on the Al Gore-invented Internet, and if you dare to Google it, you will see it all over the soggy bloggysphere and even the occasional newspaper article.
Yes, according to Craig Silverman in Canada, who investigates media gaffes as a profession, syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon used the faux quote in 2010 when replying to a reader’s question about whether a “party girl” and am introverted male could make for a successful couple.
“Sartre once said, ‘Hell is other people at breakfast,’” agony aunt Alkon administered to her aching advice ally advisedly. “An introvert sees no reason to narrow it down to a particular time of day.”
Fast forward to mid-March 2012: The revered New York Times,
which sells a weekly 12-page English-language news supplement for students
of English around that world that is inserted in overseas newspapers in 35 countries — including in the ”China Daily” in Beijing and oui, oui, ”Le Figaro” in France — printed
Rauch’s snarky snowballing quote on the front page of its worldwide Times branding tool.
However, two weeks later, after several dozen rounds of emails back and
forth between this reporter
and Times editors in Manhattan, the Times Weekly issued a two-sentence ”correction” notice in all its overseas editions. But not one
word about this in the domestic New York Times or any of its media blogs. ”Egg on the face” apparently does not register in the Gray Lady’s Manhattan offices — only egg cream sodas in Brooklyn. So no need to confess to local American readers of the paper’s existential angst.
Overseas Times readers were treated to this little gem: “A ‘Lens’ column earlier this month about introverts and extroverts
misquoted the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The correct quote
is ‘Hell is other people,’ not ‘Hell is other people at breakfast’.”
How did this fake quote take on a life of its own, beginning with its
Boston debut in 2003? Three factors enter in here: the speed of
the internet, the lack of fact-checkers at most media outlets and
the gullibility of ”readers” today. I say readers in quotes, because most people
reading off screens today are not really “reading.” They are, to coin a new term, “screening.”
Readers today? They’ll believe anything! And even if they
find out something they have ”screened” is incorrect,
they will often continue
to spread it around on social media and email because
it sounds like it could be a real good quote and they like it.
This is how things work in the Internet Age: “Hell is other people at breakfast” is now printed
on t-shirts you can order online.
A Boston blarneyman sets up a fake quote from Sartre back in
2003, signaling to his
readers that he was kidding — kidding! — and almost 10 years
later the fake quote is still
going strong on blogs, emails and bonafide newspaper websites.
The fake quote still appears uncorrected on the website of the ”China Daily” in Beijing, where
it has even surfaced in an online forum for Chinese students of
English, one of whom
asked forum users what the meaning of the
“Hell is other people at breakfast”
quote is, without knowing that the quote was entirely fake and faux and false and that Sartre
never said such a thing.
But because it was printed on paper in the prestigious New York Times Weekly in
China, there’s a chance 1.3 billion
Chinese are now walking around quoting the faux Sartre.
How did the Rauch joke get so much traction on the internet over the
past 9 years or so? Google the quote and
see for yourself. Hundreds of blogs and newspaper nebobs have
quoted the “breakfast” quote as a real
Sartrian sentiment. Some bloggers even ascribe the fake quote to
American humorist Kurt Vonnegut now!
Do I think this Quixotic quote will ever die, now that the Times Weekly
has issued a quiet overseas correction? No way.
The Rauchian roar will likely live on for 100 years or more, archived
in thousands of blogs and websites
as future generations ponder just what Sartre was eating for breakfast
that fateful day in Paris when he didn’t say that.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the internet, and I’m online 365/24/7. But I also love editors
and fact-checkers and people who take the time
to make sure the information they have in their files is correct
before they push the “send” button. We often
”screen” too fast off screens, rushing from distraction to distraction, and
there is a price to pay for this recklessness: fake quotes and false information.
Disinformation? Don’t get me started.