Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.22
Context: The strange and wonderful Book of Job treats of the same subject as we are discussing; its contents are a fiction, conceived for the purpose of explaining the different opinions which people hold on Divine Providence.... This fiction, however, is in so far different from other fictions that it includes profound ideas and great mysteries, removes great doubts, and reveals the most important truths. I will discuss it as fully as possible; and I will also tell you the words of our Sages that suggested to me the explanation of this great poem.
“There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.”
Source: Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949
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Doris Lessing 94
British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer … 1919–2013Related quotes
“To overcome the resistance to truth, literature makes use of fictions that are images of truth.”
How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)
Context: Literature... seeks to entertain — and why is this?... The reason, fundamentally, is that literature knows something that science does not: the human resistance to hearing the truth. Science does not inform scientists of this basic fact.... The wisdom of literature arises mainly from its attention to this point. To overcome the resistance to truth, literature makes use of fictions that are images of truth.
“Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”
“People are not to be blamed for their doubts, but that they make no effort to arrive at the truth.”
Source: The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp (1908), Ch. XXXIV
“A play is fiction — and fiction is fact distilled into truth.”
The New York Times (18 September 1966)
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XV
Misquoted as "Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense." by Laurence J. Peter in "Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time", among many others.
Following the Equator (1897)
Source: Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
“Non-fiction contains facts, fiction contains truth.”
Next Testament (Boom Studios, 2014)