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
“Truth, as ever, avoids the stranger.”
Source: Hainish Cycle, City of Illusions (1967), Chapter 1
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Ursula K. Le Guin 292
American writer 1929–2018Related quotes
“Tis strange - but true; for Truth is always strange,
Stranger than Fiction”
Variant: For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.
“But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction — to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.”
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XV
Following the Equator (1897)
“Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies.”
Or, for that matter, as true.
Source: The Areas of My Expertise (2005), p. 18
“Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got used to it.”
1910s
Source: A Little Book in C Major (1916)
“To tell you the truth, I've just been avoiding everything.”
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed.”
Source: Earthsea Books, The Tombs of Atuan (1971), Chapter 11, "The Western Mountains"