The Last Wish - Andrzej Sapkowski

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.

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.

Money opens all doors.

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.

Love and blood. They both posses a mighty power. Wizards and learned men have been racking their brains over this for years, but they haven't arrived at anything except that-"
"That what, Geralt?"
"It has to be true love”

They say silence is golden. Maybe it is, although I'm not sure it's worth that much. It has its price certainly; you have to pay for it.

Don’t be embarrassed. I don’t faint at the sight of a naked man. Triss Merigold, a friend, says if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

“Don’t you think” — he smiled — “that my lack of faith makes such a trance pointless?” “No, I don’t. And do you know why?” “No.” Nenneke leaned over and looked him in the eyes with a strange smile on her pale lips. “Because it would be the first proof I’ve ever heard of that a lack of faith has any kind of power at all.