Truth Is Always Strange Stranger Than

From Don Juan, Canto XIV, Stanza 101 (published December 1823). The full line reads: "'Tis strange — but true; for truth is always strange; / Stranger than fiction." Byron uses the observation as a digression in the middle of his satirical social comedy, defending the improbable events of his narrative by noting that real life routinely surpasses the imagination of novelists. Scholars credit Byron with originating the phrase "truth is stranger than fiction," which has since passed into common usage.