Andrzej Sapkowski — Quotes from Author's Books

A woman accentuates her beauty for her own self-esteem

To be neutral does not mean to be indifferent or insensitive. You don't have to kill your feelings. It's enough to kill hatred within yourself.

There is never a second opportunity to make a first impression.

But you should act, be brave, seize life by the scruff of the neck. Believe me, little one, you should only regret inactivity, indecisiveness, hesitation. You shouldn’t regret actions or decisions, even if they occasionally end in sadness and regret.

‘Fringilla,’ he answered after a while. ‘You’re a woman a man can only dream about. My fault, my only fault, is that I don’t have the nature of a dreamer.’

People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.

I could never resist the temptation of having a look at something that doesn't exist.

It’s impossible to repay something that has no price. Some say everything in the world–everything, with no exception–has a price. It’s not true. There are things with no price, things that are priceless. But you realise it belatedly: when you lose them, you lose them forever and nothing can get them back for you.

You’ve mistaken the stars reflected on the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.

Only Evil and Greater Evil exist and beyond them, in the shadows, lurks True Evil. And sometimes True Evil seizes you by the throat and demands that you choose between it and another, slightly lesser, Evil.

He knew ballads were not written to be believed, but to move their audience.

"What a company I ended up with,’ Geralt continued, shaking his head. ‘Brothers in arms! A team of heroes! What have I done to deserve it? A poetaster with a lute. A wild and lippy half-dryad, half-woman. A vampire, who’s about to notch up his fifth century. And a bloody Nilfgaardian who insists he isn’t a Nilfgaardian.’
‘And leading the party is the Witcher, who suffers from pangs of conscience, impotence and the inability to take decisions,’ Regis finished calmly. ‘I suggest we travel incognito, to avoid arousing suspicion.’
‘Or raising a laugh,’ Milva added."

When you know about something it stops being a nightmare. When you know how to fight something, it stops being so threatening.

Money opens all doors.

When they’re about to hang you, ask for a glass of water. You never know what might happen before they bring it.

Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.