There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.