Real Life - Distinct From Fiction

Distinct From Fiction

When used to distinguish from fictional worlds or universes against the consensus reality of the reader, the term has a long history:

Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are nevertheless more real than real life itself. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

Similarly, the phrase can be used to distinguish an actor from a character, e.g. "In real life, he has a British accent" or "In real life, he lives in Los Angeles."

There is a related but slightly distinct usage among role-players and historical reenactors, to distinguish the fantasy or historical context from the actual world and the role-player or reenactor from the character, e.g. "What do you do in real life?" or "Where do you live in real life?"

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Famous quotes containing the words distinct and/or fiction:

    “Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.”
    —William Blake (1757–1827)

    “Coincidence is a pimp and a cardsharper in ordinary fiction but a marvelous artist in the patterns of facts recollected by a non-ordinary memorist.”
    —Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)