
“The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.”
"Tallulah" in Dreams Underfoot : The Newford Collection (2003), p. 399
“The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.”
"A Culture of Liberty" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/a-culture-of-liberty_b_242402.html, The Huffington Post (2009-07-21)
"The Word Turned Upside Down", The New York Review of Books, Volume 30, Number 16, October 27, 1983.
Contrasting the attitude of those who believe that they are especially "divine" and thus believe other people "owe" them deference — and those who assert all are divine, and thus are respectful of others proper rights and dignity as both human and divine beings.
Be Here Now (1971)
“The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.”
Attributed to an interview on Larry King Live; also quoted in Quotable Quotes (1997) edited by Deborah Deford
Attributed variant: The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.
Clancy here expresses an idea evoked in similar statements made by others, all derived from the orignial made by Lord Byron:
Lord Byron: Truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.
Mark Twain: Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn't.
G. K. Chesterton: Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
Leo Rosten: Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense. (attributed)
1990s
“The window can be fixed, Katerina. I'm far more concerned about him.”
Source: Perfect Scoundrels