Blood of Elves (The Witcher Book 3 / The Witcher Saga Novels Book 1) by Andrzej Sapkowski (1994, pl; 2008, en) (read in 2022)

“[…] in his day the world was a better place. Duplicity was a character flaw to be ashamed of. Sincerity did not bring shame.”

“Magic extends its hand towards you from behind the closed door, towards you, a tiny grain of sand in the workings of the Clock of Fate. Chaos extends its talons towards you, still uncertain if you will be its tool or an obstacle in its design. That which Chaos shows you in your dreams is this very uncertainty. Chaos is afraid of you, Child of Destiny. But it wants you to be the one who feels fear.””

““Indeed,” said Baron Vilibert, looking defiantly at the elf. “You have read some very interesting things into this ballad, honoured sir. An unnecessary war, you say? You’d like to avoid such a tragedy in the future, would you? Are we to understand that if the Nilfgaardians were to attack us again you would advise that we capitulate? Humbly accept the Nilfgaardian yoke?”

““Life is a priceless gift and should be protected,” the elf replied coldly. “Nothing justifies wide-scale slaughter and sacrifice of life, which is what the battles at Sodden were—both the battle lost and the battle won. Both of them cost the humans thousands of lives. And with them, you lost unimaginable potential—”

“Aleays the same discussion about war. If you’re mugged, give your wallet. If your country’s attacked, give not a square inch of territory and fight to the last citizen’s breath before you parley.”

““What do they want from us?” yelled Vera Loewenhaupt. “Why are they bent on persecuting us? Why don’t they leave us in peace, leave us to our lives and work? What do the Nilfgaardians want?”

““They want our blood!” howled Baron Vilibert.

““And our land!” someone cried from the crowd of peasants.

““And our women!” chimed in Sheldon Skaggs, with a ferocious glower.”

““Nilfgaard is ruled by Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, a tyrant and autocrat who enforces obedience with whip, noose and axe!” thundered Baron Vilibert. “What are you proposing, sir dwarf? How are we supposed to close ranks? With similar tyranny? And which king, which kingdom, in your opinion, should subordinate the others? In whose hands would you like to see the sceptre and knout?””

“The elf smiled derisively. “We’ve been combining our blood for generations, for centuries, your race and mine, and doing so quite successfully—fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t know. You started persecuting mixed relationships less than a quarter of a century ago and, incidentally, not very successfully. So show me a human now who hasn’t a dash of Seidhe Ichaer, the blood of the Elder Race.””

“Intolerance and superstition has always been the domain of the more stupid amongst the common folk and, I conjecture, will never be uprooted, for they are as eternal as stupidity itself. There, where mountains tower today, one day there will be seas; there where today seas surge, will one day be deserts. But stupidity will remain stupidity. Nicodemus de Boot, Meditations on Life, Happiness and Prosperity”

“[…] in his day the world was a better place. Duplicity was a character flaw to be ashamed of. Sincerity did not bring shame.”

““I just wanted to be honest. I don’t want to get mixed up in this conflict. I want to remain neutral.”

““It’s impossible!” yelled Yarpen. “It’s impossible to remain neutral, don’t you understand that? No, you don’t understand anything. Oh, get off my wagon, get on your horse, and get out of my sight, with your arrogant neutrality. You get on my nerves.””

“You’ve grasped the nature of the Scoia’taels quickly, you like the slogans. You know why you understand them so well? Because the Scoia’taels are brats too. They’re little snotheads who don’t understand that they’re being egged on, that someone’s taking advantage of their childish stupidity by feeding them slogans about freedom.””

““Because you multiply like rabbits.” The dwarf ground his teeth. “You’d do nothing but screw day in day out, without discrimination, with just anyone and anywhere. And it’s enough for your women to just sit on a man’s trousers and it makes their bellies swell… Why have you gone so red, crimson as a poppy? You wanted to know, didn’t you? So you’ve got the honest truth and faithful history of a world where he who shatters the skulls of others most efficiently and swells women’s bellies fastest reigns. And it’s just as hard to compete with you people in murdering as it is in screwing—”

““That water’s a stupid idea,” stated Regan Dahlberg, spitting out a bone. “Washing can only harm you when you’re sick. When you’re healthy, too, come to that. You remember old Schrader? His wife once told him to wash, and Schrader went and died soon afterwards.”

““Because a rabid dog bit him.”

““If he hadn’t washed, the dog wouldn’t have bitten him.””

“Because I, Yarpen Zigrin, coward, traitor and renegade, state that we should not kill each other. I state that we ought to live. Live in such a way that we don’t, later, have to ask anyone for forgiveness. The heroic Elirena… She had to ask. Forgive me, she begged, forgive me. To hell with that! It’s better to die than to live in the knowledge that you’ve done something that needs forgiveness.””

““During high tide,” interrupted Geralt, “when the incoming tide wave passes the Novigrad canals, there is no water—to use the word precisely—in the Delta at all. There is a liquid made up of excrement, soapsuds, oil and dead rats.”

““Unfortunately, unfortunately.” The Master Tutor grew sad. “Degradation of the environment… You may not believe it, but of more than two thousand species of fish living in this river only fifty years ago, not more than nine hundred remain. It is truly sad.”

“They both leaned against the railing and stared into the murky green depths. The tide must have already been coming in because the stench of the water was growing stronger. The first dead rats appeared.”

““That’s what a customs war looks like,” Linus Pitt commented on the chaos with a wise expression on his face. “Vizimir forced Novigrad to introduce the ius stapulae. Foltest of Temeria retaliated with a retortive, absolute ius stapulae in Vizima and Gors Velen. That was a great blow for Redanian merchants so Vizimir increased the tax on Temerian products. He is defending the Redanian economy. Temeria is flooded with cheap goods coming from Nilfgaardian manufactories. That’s why the customs officers are so keen. If too many Nilfgaardian goods were to cross the border, the Redanian economy would collapse. Redania has practically no manufactories and the craftsmen wouldn’t be able to cope with competition.”

““In a nutshell,” smiled Geralt, “Nilfgaard is slowly taking over with its goods and gold that which it couldn’t take with arms. Isn’t Temeria defending itself? Hasn’t Foltest blocked his southern borders?””

“Although the chancellor’s orders forbade students and tutors to drink and play before dusk, drinking and playing took place around the clock in Oxenfurt, for it is well known that if there is anything that makes men thirstier than the acquisition of knowledge it is the full or partial prohibition of drinking.”

“Grey and yellow linnets warbled amongst the shrubs in the park adjacent to the students’ dormitories, while an orangutan sat in the poplar having, no doubt, escaped from the zoological gardens in the Department of Natural History.”

“Shani smiled even more beautifully and Dandelion was once more filled with the desire to finally compose a ballad about girls like her—not too pretty but nonetheless beautiful, girls of whom one dreams at night when those of classical beauty are forgotten after five minutes.”

“A popular saying at King Vizimir’s court held that if Dijkstra states it is noon yet darkness reigns all around, it is time to start worrying about the fate of the sun.”

““Send a penal expedition to smother the free elves of Dol Blathanna,” added Demavend, frowning. “March an interventionary force into Mahakam. Allow Ervyll of Verden a chance, at last, to get at the dryads in Brokilon. Yes, a blood bath! And any survivors—to the reservations!””

“But there is a way around that, too, gentlemen. What if it were Nilfgaard who was the aggressor? At Dol Angra for example? Against Aedirn and Lyria? We could arrange that somehow… could stage some tiny provocation… A border incident caused by them? An attack on a border fort, let us say? We will, of course, be prepared—we will react decisively and forcefully, with everybody’s full acceptance,”

““Calm down.” Nenneke looked at her coldly and, all of a sudden, somehow oddly without respect. “I said they were natural and absolutely safe. Forgive me, dear, but in this respect I am a greater authority than you. I know it is exceedingly difficult for you to accept someone else’s authority but in this case I am forced to inflict it on you. And let there be no more talk about it.””

““There are also those according to whom magic is a science. In order to master it, talent and innate ability alone are not enough. Years of keen study and arduous work are essential; endurance and self-discipline are necessary. Magic acquired like this is knowledge, learning, the limits of which are constantly stretched by enlightened and vigorous minds, by experience, experiments and practice. Magic acquired in such a way is progress. It is the plough, the loom, the watermill, the smelting furnace, the winch and the pulley. It is progress, evolution, change. It is constant movement. Upwards. Towards improvement. Towards the stars. The fact that following the Conjunction of the Spheres we discovered magic will, one day, allow us to reach the stars.”

“Magic extends its hand towards you from behind the closed door, towards you, a tiny grain of sand in the workings of the Clock of Fate. Chaos extends its talons towards you, still uncertain if you will be its tool or an obstacle in its design. That which Chaos shows you in your dreams is this very uncertainty. Chaos is afraid of you, Child of Destiny. But it wants you to be the one who feels fear.””

““Lady Yennefer? How does it work with this drawing of the force? If I gather force into myself then there might not be enough left down below. Is it right to do that? Mother Nenneke taught us that we mustn’t take anything just like that, for the fun of it. Even the cherry has to be left on its tree for the birds, so that it can simply fall.”

“Yennefer put her arm around Ciri, kissed her gently on the hair at her temple.

““I wish,” she muttered, “others could hear what you said. Vilgefortz, Francesca, Terranova… Those who believe they have exclusive right to the force and can use it unreservedly.”