ProverbMorality
English origin1823
English origin1823Truth is stranger than fiction.
Meaning: Reality often presents unexpected twists that invented stories cannot match in sheer improbability.
Origin: Lord Byron's Don Juan (1823) has "'Tis strange — but true; for truth is always strange; / Stranger than fiction." Mark Twain later explained why, in Following the Equator (1897): fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, and truth isn't.
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