The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

But after a year spent with company, I realised how hard it was to live without anyone to talk to.’

I’m not a pious hermit, I haven’t done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.

‘People,’ Geralt turned his head, ‘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.’