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About this quote

What does it mean?
Reality will eventually align with idealistic stories, but for now fiction controls the news.
In plain terms
Truth will catch up to art eventually, but now stories rule news.
What can you take from it?
Fiction shapes perception while truth lags behind.

Where it applies

  • media criticism
  • storytelling
  • social justice

Putting it to work

  • writing satire
  • analyzing media
  • discussing truth

Questions to consider

  • Does fiction shape reality?
  • Where is the truth in news?

Another view

Reality does not always align with artistic ideals.

More from O. Henry

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  2. He wrote love stories, a thing I have always kept free from, holding the belief that the well-known and popular sentiment is not properly matter for publicatio…

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  3. Bohemia is nothing more than the little country in which you do not live. If you try to obtain citizenship in it, at once the court and retinue pack the royal …

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