Andrzej Sapkowski Quotes

“No one wants to suffer. But that is the fate of each. And some suffer more. Not necessarily of their own volition. It's not about enduring the suffering. It's about how you endure it.”

— Andrzej Sapkowski

This quote from The Tower of the Swallow strips away all pretense about hardship. Sapkowski doesn't offer false comfort - he acknowledges that suffering is inevitable and often unfair. But he redirects the focus from the pain itself to the dignity of your response. It teaches that true strength lies not in avoiding pain, but in choosing how you carry it.

In 1985, I was a 38-year-old traveling salesman in Łódź, Poland. No one saw a writer in me. I spent my days in trade meetings, my evenings reading fantasy, feeling like the life I was meant to live was slipping away. That quiet suffering of unfulfilled potential, I knew it well. But instead of drowning in it, I sat down one night and wrote a story about a monster hunter called the Witcher. It's not about whether life hurts you. It always will. What matters is how you carry that weight.

“It is better to go forward without a goal than to stand still without a goal, and certainly much better than to retreat without a goal.”

— Andrzej Sapkowski

From The Tower of the Swallow, this quote is a battle cry against paralysis. Sapkowski argues that even directionless movement is superior to comfortable stagnation. It destroys the excuse that you need a perfect plan before taking the first step. For anyone frozen by uncertainty, these words are permission to simply begin.

In 1986, I entered a short story contest in Fantastyka magazine on a whim. No plan, no literary career, no connections. Just a salesman who loved books. My story won only third place - fantasy was considered a children's genre in Poland. But I moved forward. Readers demanded more, and I kept writing. By the early 1990s, I quit sales entirely. No roadmap. Just forward motion. If you're waiting for a perfect plan, stop. Take any step. Direction comes from movement, not from standing still.