With its hours upon hours of gameplay and content, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was one of the best games to come out in the past decade. It followed its protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, through a war-torn land as he searched for his surrogate daughter Ciri, encountering everything from elven sages to unknowable monsters to powerful vampires along the way.
Throughout all of this, Geralt's dialogue and attitude characterized the game's feel. Plus, Doug Cockle gave an iconic vocal performance in the lead role, making what he said even more memorable and impactful. This is a collection of the best things the witcher had to say.
Updated October 12, 2022 By Ben Jessey: The Witcher 3 may have come out back in 2015, but it's still regarded as one of the best games in recent memory. The protagonist, Geralt, deserves plenty of credit for the title's praise as he's a very compelling main character.
Much of the intrigue he generates comes from the many incredible lines he delivers. Whether he's spouting witty jokes or giving serious lessons, he often provides lines that will live with players forever. Some of the best were already on this list, but we've now added a few more.
20 "Traveled Half The World To Find You, But I Never Intended To Force Anything On You."
Witcher 3 has one of the best bittersweet endings in gaming history. It sees Ciri realize that she can do more good for the world as an empress than a witcher. So, she chooses to take over the reins from her father, Emhyr. This isn't easy for her as she enjoys her life at Kaer Morhen and living alongside Geralt.
She hesitates to tell her adoptive father the news. However, once she does, his reaction isn't bad. It's clear he is going to miss her, but as this quote proves, he wants her to choose her own path.
19 "Hatred And Prejudice Will Never Be Eradicated. And Witch Hunts Will Never Be About Witches. To Have A Scapegoat – That’s The Key."
A major side questline in The Witcher 3 revolves around Geralt and Triss getting all the mages out of Novigrad to get them away from the Witch Hunters. It's a noble task that has a happy ending for the magical individuals.
It doesn't turn out great for the non-humans living in Novigrad, though. With the mages gone, they became the targets. When Geralt realizes this, he provides a chilling monologue, which contains the line in question. The quote's real-world relevance is clear.
18 "Fascinating Story. Any Chance You're Nearing The End?"
Geralt meets some odd people throughout his adventure in The Witcher 3. One such lady gives him a full and detailed story about how she lost her frying pan. As this is The Witcher, there is more to the story than just misplaced cooking equipment. But Geralt still gets the opportunity to mock the ridiculous tale.
He does so with a very deadpan comment where he sarcastically refers to the story as "fascinating" before clearly expressing hope that the tale is over. It's one of Geralt's funniest lines.
17 "Lambert, Lambert - What A Pr***."
Outside of Vesemir, the other witchers at Kaer Morhen share a brotherly relationship with one another. This, of course, means they make fun of each other a lot. One round of back-and-forth occurs when Geralt and Lambert are riding a boat in The Witcher 3.
It begins with an innocuous comment by Geralt as he mentions that the fog is like curdled milk. In response, Lambert sarcastically calls Geralt a poet. Then the protagonist fires out a five-word verse that's just an excuse to call Lambert a Pr***.
16 "Don’t Blame Yourself. No Witcher’s Ever Died In His Bed"
One of the most heartbreaking moments in The Witcher 3 comes when The Wild Hunt kills Vesemir. Ciri feels somewhat responsible as she is the one the antagonists are after, and the old witcher died protecting her. At the funeral, Geralt realizes how Ciri feels and tries to comfort the young woman.
Not only does he tell her to avoid blaming herself, but he also informs her that no witcher dies in his bed. While it's reassuring to say, it does shine a light on the difficult lives witchers lead. They never get to settle down and be happy. Instead, they fight till their final breath.
15 "A True Witcher Should Never Abandon Poultry In Distress."
Geralt utters this hilarious quote when he takes on the contract "Loosey this Goosey! in the Blood and Wine expansion pack from The Witcher 3. You'll find the contract for this quest on a notice board and it starts the "Duck, Duck, Goose" side quest.
Geralt will help rescue a golden goose named Balbina who claims that someone is watching her. If you manage to complete the quest you'll be granted a golden egg for your troubles. Geralt is often quick to utter quips and witticisms, this is a great example of one.
14 "Bear! Bear! Run, You Stupid Piece Of S**t!"
During one of the funnier quests in the game, Geralt has to help an old Pellar get his prized goat back. His goat, named Princess, is lost in the woods and Geralt has to herd her back home.
Unfortunately, doing that isn't as easy as one might expect but seeing how exasperated Geralt is and how invested he gets in the goat's wellbeing is hilarious. At one point, a bear tries to eat Princess and Geralt gets to utter this priceless quote, made even better by his line delivery.
13 "Wind's Howling."
This is a very short quote but it's memorable. This is because, this line, and many of Geralt's other weather-related remarks like "looks like rain," have become a meme in the gaming community.
While the quote by itself might not seem remarkable, it's something that you'll hear repeatedly throughout the game as Geralt likes to comment on the weather. Fans of the game like to joke that he fancies himself a meteorologist and you can find tons of jokes and memes online about his weather obsession.
12 "Witchers Were Made To Kill Monsters. It Doesn't Matter Who Posted The Notice, The Coin Has To Be Right, That's All."
This is part of a longer quote where Geralt talks about how witchers don't debate their customer service. They do what needs to be done when they're asked because that's their job.
It's an important quote, especially for people who are unfamiliar with the larger world of the witcher. If you haven't read the books or played the other games, you might not understand how witchers operate or their specific code of conduct. This quote helps to clarify that.
11 "Where'd You Complete Your Training? School Of The Snail?"
Geralt is always very quick on his toes and he is able to lobby comebacks with the best of them. He's snarky and hilarious, the best part is, you never know when he's going to say something that cuts someone to the quick.
This is an example of a great quote he gives to a witcher wannabe. The real witcher "schools" are of noble and ferocious animals like wolves, bears, and vipers, definitely not something as slow-moving as a snail.
10 "First Soldier You See'll Kill You . . . Boots. He'll Kill You For Your Boots."
In the opening hour of the game, players will meet the scholar Aldert Geert at the White Orchard inn. Geert functions mostly as a Gwent tutorial, but also helps build out the world you'll soon be traveling through.
As Geert expresses his desire to go to the front lines of the war, Geralt can advise him against it, leading to this line that sums up the nature of war very succinctly - not a place of high-minded ideals or principles as Geert imagines, but a world where a civilian will be murdered for something as simple as a pair of boots.
9 "There's Nothing Behind Me. I'm A Witcher, I'd Have Heard It. Just Like I Can Hear Your Heart. Which Is Pounding... Like A Liar's."
Throughout the world of The Witcher 3, Geralt can find various small quests and encounters that flesh out the character of the world itself. This particular quote comes from one such quest where he found a man with a bow claiming that monsters had attacked him and his friends.
Upon investigating the scene of the attack, it becomes clear that the man is lying and is, in fact, a bandit whose ambush had been interrupted by a group of necrophages. Upon confronting him with this, the man attempts to trick Geralt by shouting that there's something behind him, which leads to the above disdainful line.
8 "You Don't Need Mutations To Strip Men Of Their Humanity. I've Seen Plenty Of Examples."
One of the more interesting characters Geralt encounters over the course of the story is Graden the witch hunter. Unlike other witch hunters, who tend to be brutish men concerned primarily with cruelty and violence, Graden takes his duty seriously and sees his work as similar to that of the witcher's in that he protects ordinary people from the supernatural.
At one point during the conversations Geralt has with Graden, Graden comments that he thought witcher mutations were meant to eliminate the humanity of their subjects. Geralt replies with this quote, reminding us that it doesn't take some fantasy phenomenon to drive people to become inhuman monsters.
7 "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."
This next quote comes from The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine expansion, where Geralt travels to Toussaint to investigate a series of gruesome murders. While there, he encounters several higher vampires, including Orianna, an aristocratic denizen of Beauclair.
Orianna appears cordial and kind at first glance, but later into the game, the player can follow her to an orphanage she runs where they will discover that she maintains the institution in order to feed on the blood of children. Geralt delivers the above line, commenting that this particular situation is not one of the moral gray areas that he usually runs into and that Orianna is a monster.
6 Ciri And The White Frost
This one is not a specific quote, but rather a set of dialogue choices near the end of the main story mission (spoilers ahead). As Ciri prepares to face the White Frost, a powerful force that sweeps through worlds, destroying all life, Geralt interrupts and tries to convince her not to endanger herself needlessly. No matter what the player does or chooses, however, Ciri will always go face the White Frost.
Before Ciri goes, the last thing Geralt can say to her is entirely up to the player. Each option is a different sort of heartbreaking as they range from Geralt begging her not to go through with it to him wishing her good luck to simple silence.
5 "What The F*** Was That?"
Geralt has faced his fair share of strange enemies, from Princess Adda the striga to a massive, tentacled kayran. One would think he was at least a little desensitized to the unusual, but there are still creatures in the world that make him do a double-take.
One such being is the Caretaker from The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone. This monster appears in the garden of the von Everec estate and appears faceless except for a crude gash of a mouth. Wielding a massive shovel and moving unnaturally quickly, the Caretaker is one of the most unsettling fights of the expansion, and leads Geralt to express this particular line of dumbfounded confusion upon its defeat.
4 "Time Eats Away At Memories, Distorts Them. Sometimes We Only Remember The Good... Sometimes Only The Bad."
This next quote is from the Blood and Wine expansion, delivered near to the conclusion of the game (more spoilers ahead). It becomes clear by the end of the story that the Duchess's sister, Sylvia Anna aka Syanna, had manipulated the vampire Dettlaff into killing several of the Duchy's knights, with the ultimate goal of murdering the Duchess herself.
If the player chooses to interact with Syanna and attempts to understand her perspective, they can advise her that memory is a tricky thing, shifting and changing according to what we believe happened rather than what actually happened.
3 "Keep The Gods Out Of It. Swear On Your Heads. Which I Will Take If You Break Your Vow."
Another quest from the Hearts of Stone expansion sees Geralt come across a small town where the only remaining residents are an old couple. They seem perfectly harmless, but upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that they have been cannibalizing people who pass through their town.
Geralt can choose several options to resolve this particular story. One involves confronting the elderly couple and demanding that they cease their actions. As they try to swear on the gods, Geralt interrupts and demands that they swear on their heads instead, following up with a threat to return and see them executed if they fail to keep their word.
2 "Why Men Throw Their Lives Away Attacking An Armed Witcher... I'll Never Know. Something About My Face?"
Another minor encounter in the game's Blood and Wine expansion sees Geralt getting stopped at a bridge by a group of bandits. One thing leads to another and then Geralt - being Geralt - kills the entire gang. Afterward, he makes this short comment.
While it may be a bit of a throwaway line, it's still nonetheless quite humorous as it comments of the innately game-based nature of the situation in which a group of untrained, under-equipped bandits attempt to take on the legendary witcher Geralt of Rivia, with Geralt musing on why these circumstances always seem to happen to him.
1 "Who Taught You To Fight Like This?"..."The Witcher You Slew."
Our final quote is delivered over the course of the main game's storyline. It's not part of any dialogue tree or optional quest, but rather a cutscene following an epic duel between Geralt and Imlerith, a general of the Wild Hunt who had killed Geralt's mentor Vesemir.
During the course of the fight, Geralt is pushed to his limit as he pulls out every trick he has to defeat the warrior, including using the Igni sign to scorch Imlerith's face. Imlerith, shocked at the witcher's skill, demands to know where Geralt learned to fight so skillfully. Geralt replies simply, reminding Imlerith of the witcher he killed at Kaer Morhen before ending the duel and getting justice for Vesemir.