A Quote by Mark Twain

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

Mark Twain

Quote Topics

Truth Fiction Obliged Possibilities Stick Truth Is

Quote Author

Mark Twain
American - Writer
November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

Mark Twain

The truth of history crowds out the truth of fiction - as if one were obliged to choose between them.

Susan Sontag

[L]et us say that we are obliged to produce the truth by the power that demands truth and needs it in order to function: we are forced to tell the truth, we are constrained, we are condemned to admit the truth or to discover it.

Michel Foucault

With fiction, you can do whatever you want to, but if you are making a film on someone, you have to stick to the truth. You cannot just say that I will change the climax because I do not like it.

Rajkumar Hirani

...Don't let me ever hear you say, 'I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth.' Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of 'literature'? That means fiction, too, stupid.

John Waters

I love historical fiction because there's a literal truth, and there's an emotional truth, and what the fiction writer tries to create is that emotional truth.

Jewell Parker Rhodes

To those searching for truth -- not the truth of dogma and darkness but the truth brought by reason, search, examination, and inquiry, discipline is required. For faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction -- faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.

Thomas A. Edison

Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.

Stephen King

Fiction has a unique role in conveying Truth. In fact, only fiction that is Truth with a capital T is worthwhile.

Jerry B. Jenkins

What fiction does is bring you closer to the essence of truth, as opposed to simply giving you the truth. And there's no knowing truth. Truth seekers are all charlatans. You can only feel the truth of something.

Sarnath Banerjee

... we are obliged to produce the truth by the power that demands truth and needs it in order to function: we are constrained, we are condemned to admit the truth or to discover it. Power constantly asks questions and questions us; it constantly investigates and records; it institutionalizes the search for the truth, professionalizes it, and rewards it. ... In a different sense, we are also subject to the truth in the sense that truth lays down the law: it is the discourse of truth that decides, at least in part; it conveys and propels effects of power.

Michel Foucault

I read so much science fiction when I was young. I believe science fiction is the genre for exploration and to learn about possibilities via book.

Bob Mayer

Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp – and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble.

Dean Koontz

Fiction is most powerful when it contains most truth; and there is little truth we get so true as that which we find in fiction.

J. G. Holland

I have found that in fiction one is freer to speak the truth, if only because in fiction the truth is not expected or required. You may easily disguise it, so that it is only recognized much later, when the story and the characters have faded into darkness.