Geralt of Rivia/Quotes

"I don't believe in Melitele, don't believe in the existence of other gods either, but I respect your choice, your sacrifice. Your belief. Because your faith and sacrifice, the price you're paying for your silence, will make you a better, a greater being. Or, at least, it could. But my faithlessness can do nothing. It's powerless."

"You ask me what I believe in, in that case"

"I believe in the sword"

- Geralt to Iola, pg. 114 The Last Wish (U.K. edition)

"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."

- Geralt to Dandelion, pg. 191 The Last Wish (U.S. edition)

"I manage because I have to. Because I've no other way out. Because I've overcome the vanity and pride of being different. I've understood that they are a pitiful defense against being different. Because I've understood that the sun shines differently when something changes, but I'm not the axis of those changes. The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn't going to do anything. We've got to accept facts, elf. That's what we've got to learn."

- Geralt to Filavandrel aén Fidháil, pg. 226 The Last Wish (U.S. edition)

You can't stop a soldier from being frightened but you can give him motivation to help him overcome that fear. I have no such motivation. I can't have. I'm a witcher: an artificially created mutant. I kill monsters for money. I defend children when their parents pay me to. If Nilfgaardian parents pay me, I'll defend Nilfgaardian children. And even if the world lies in ruin—which does not seem likely to me—I'll carry on killing monsters in the ruins of this world until some monster kills me. That is my fate, my reason, my life and my attitude to the world. And it is not what I chose. It was chosen for me.

- Geralt, Blood of Elves

'Set out on your chessboard,' said Geralt, 'the kings, queens, elephants and rooks, and don't worry about me, because I mean as much on your chessboard as the dust on it. It's not my game. You say I'll have to choose? I say you're wrong. I won't choose. I'll respond to events. I'll adapt to what others choose. That's what I've always done.'

- Geralt to Vilgefortz, pg. 146 Time of Contempt (U.K. edition)

Your vision is a world where people are afraid to venture out after dark; not for fear of cut-throats, but of the guardians of public order. For, after all, the result of all great crackdowns on miscreants is always that the miscreants enter the ranks of the guardians of public order en masse. Your vision is a world of bribery, blackmail and entrapment, a world of turning imperial evidence and false witnesses. A world of snoopers and coerced confessions. Informing and the fear of being informed upon. And inevitably the day will come in your world when the flesh of the wrong person will be torn with pincers, when an innocent person is hanged or impaled. And then it will be a world of crime.

- Geralt to Fulko Artevelde, pg. 175-176 The Tower of the Swallow (U.S. edition)

'The end justifies the means,' Emhyr said dully. 'What I'm doing, I'm doing for posterity. To save the world.'
'If the world is to be saved like that—' the Witcher lifted his head '—it would be better for it to perish. Believe me, Duny, it'd be better if it perished.'

- Emhyr and Geralt, pg. 389-390 The Lady of the Lake (U.S. edition)

'Geralt?'
'Yes, Yen.'
'When I ... When we weren't together, did you go with any other women?'
'No.'
'Not once?'
'Not once.'
'Your voice didn't even waver. So I don't know why I don't believe you.'
'I only ever thought about you, Yen.'
'Now I believe you.'

- Yennefer and Geralt, pg. 464 The Lady of the Lake (U.S. edition)

I run into dilemmas all the time. Situations where it's hard to judge, hard to know what's right, make a decision. This is not one of them. You disgust me. And deserve to die.

- Geralt to Orianna, Blood and Wine expansion

A true witcher should never abandon poultry in distress.

- Geralt about taking the Contract: Loosey this Goosey!, Blood and Wine expansion

Time eats away at memories, distorts them. Sometimes we only remember the good... sometimes only the bad.

- Geralt to Syanna, Blood and Wine expansion

Why men throw their lives away attacking an armed witcher... I'll never know. Something wrong with my face?

- Geralt being attacked at Troubleu, Blood and Wine expansion