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

• duaneb 12y ago
  What is an impossible truth? I think Bertram Russell would disagree with Twain. Perhaps he meant something closer to 'the probable' or 'the plausible'
  • fishnchips 12y ago
    I'm not sure 'probability' was even in popular use in Twain's times.
  • robomc 12y ago
    He's definitely meaning something along the lines of 'plausible' - 'the possible' here means 'what we consider possible'. I think the quote makes that obvious though. If you hammer everyone's parse errors out of snappy quotes they end up pretty awkward and dull.
  • ashark 12y ago
    I think the key insight of the sentence is that "possibilities" are subjective, and don't necessarily match reality (the truth). When fiction defies expectations (possibilities), we reject it as absurd. When reality does, we have to accept it (modify our notion of "possible").