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 member of a dying species with arrows, they like to think that the boogeyman entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski