Love Reading Fantasy? You'll enjoy this collection of quotes from the First Law Trilogy

The Last Wish

You make as good a fisherman as a goat’s arse makes a trumpet.

“Kings,” continued Calanthe, “divide people into two categories—those they order around, and those they buy—because they adhere to the old and banal truth that everyone can be bought.

“The sun shines differently, the air is different, water is not as it used to be. The things we used to eat, made use of, are dying, diminishing, deteriorating. We never cultivated the land. Unlike you humans we never tore at it with hoes and ploughs.

All decent predictions rhyme.

It’s an invention, a fairy tale devoid of any sense, like all the legends in which good spirits and fortune tellers fulfill wishes. Stories like that are made up by poor simpletons, who can’t even dream of fulfilling their wishes and desires themselves. I’m pleased you’re not one of them, Geralt of Rivia. It makes you closer in spirit to me. If I want something, I don’t dream of it—I act. And I always get what I want.

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 …”

Lesser, greater, middling, it’s all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit, I haven’t done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.””

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…"

A mother, you son-of-a-bitch, is sacred!

Sword of Destiny

There is never a second opportunity to make a first impression.

Life is full of hazards, selection also occurs in life, Geralt. Misfortune, sicknesses and wars also select. Defying destiny may be just as hazardous as succumbing to it.

To me, Madam Yennefer, wisdom includes the ability to turn a deaf ear to foolish or insincere advice.

For there are some… things… which there is no way of obtaining, even by magic. And there are gifts which may not be accepted, if one is unable to… reciprocate them… with something equally precious. Otherwise such a gift will slip through the fingers, melt like a shard of ice gripped in the hand. Then only regret, the sense of loss and hurt will remain…

Emotions, whims and lies, fascinations and games. Feelings and their absence. Gifts, which may not be accepted. Lies and truth. What is truth? The negation of lies? Or the statement of a fact? And if the fact is a lie, what then is the truth? Who is full of feelings which torment him, and who is the empty carapace of a cold skull? Who? What is truth, Geralt? What is the essence of truth?’

Organising festivities, the poet argued, satisfied people’s profound and natural needs. From time to time, the bard maintained, a chap has to meet other people in a place where he can have a laugh and a singsong, gorge himself on kebabs and pierogis, drink beer, listen to music and squeeze a girl as he swung her around in the dance. If every chap wanted to satisfy those needs, Dandelion argued, individually, periodically and randomly, an indescribable mess would arise. For that reason holidays and festivities were invented. And since holidays and festivities exist, a chap ought to frequent them.

A choice which should be respected, for it is the holy and irrefutable right of every woman.

You’re taking umbrage like a tart whose lack of chastity has been pointed out to her.

A little sacrifice, he thought, just a little sacrifice. For this will calm her, a hug, a kiss, calm caresses. She doesn’t want anything more. And even if she did, what of it? For a little sacrifice, a very little sacrifice, is beautiful and worth… Were she to want more… It would calm her. A quiet, calm, gentle act of love. And I… Why, it doesn’t matter, because Essi smells of verbena, not lilac and gooseberry, doesn’t have cool, electrifying skin. Essi’s hair is not a black tornado of gleaming curls, Essi’s eyes are gorgeous, soft, warm and cornflower blue; they don’t blaze with a cold, unemotional, deep violet. Essi will fall asleep afterwards, turn her head away, open her mouth slightly, Essi will not smile in triumph. For Essi… Essi is not Yennefer.

I know that in order to unite two people, destiny is insufficient. Something more is necessary than destiny.

Blood of Elves

Remember,” she repeated, “magic is Chaos, Art and Science. It is a curse, a blessing and progress. It all depends on who uses magic, how they use it, and to what purpose. And magic is everywhere. All around us. Easily accessible.

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.

None who contemplates and commits violence has the right to consider himself better than an ordinary criminal. Because it is in the nature of all violence to lead inevitably to crime.

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.

Chaos cannot show you what it really is. So it is showing you the future, showing you what is going to happen. It wants you to be afraid of the coming days, so that fear of what is going to happen to you and those closest to you will start to guide you, take you over completely. That is why Chaos is sending you those dreams. Now, you are going to show me what you see in your dreams. And you are going to be frightened. And then you will forget and master your fear.

You mistake the stars reflected in the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.

The special army, skipper, isn’t just any old unit. It’s not some shitty shield-bearers who just need to be shown which end of the javelin pricks. A special army has to know how to fight like nobody’s business!

Taste of forbidden fruit, made all the more exciting.

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.

You are an anachronistic witcher, and I’m a modern witcher, moving with the spirit of the times. Which is why you’ll soon be out of work and I’ll be doing well. Soon there won’t be any strigas, wyverns, endriagas or werewolves left in the world. But there’ll always be whoresons.

Time of Contempt

Believe me, little one, you should only regret inactivity, indecisiveness, hesitation. You shouldn’t regret actions or decisions, even if they occasionally end in sadness and regret.

Everything ends.’ No, he thought. I don’t want it to be like that. I’m tired. Too tired to accept the perspective of endings which are beginnings, and starting everything over again.

In each of us lies a creditor and a debtor at once and the art is for the reckoning to tally inside us.

Thus do I take you, to have and to hold, for the most wondrous and terrible of times, for the best and the worst of times, by day and by night, in sickness and in health. For I love you with all my heart and swear to love you eternally, until death do us part. Traditional marriage vows.

There is only she, Yennefer, at my side, here and now, and only she matters. Here and now. And what she was long ago, where she was long ago and who she was with long ago doesn’t have any, doesn’t have the slightest, importance. Now she’s with me, here, among you all. With me, with no one else. That’s what I’m thinking right now, thinking only about her, thinking endlessly about her, smelling the scent of her perfume and the warmth of her body. And you can all choke on your envy.

Is there still good sense in the world? Or do only contemptibility and contempt remain?

You can’t afford the luxury of spurning contempt. A time of contempt is approaching, Witcher, my friend, a time of great and utter contempt. You have to adapt.

Baptism of Fire

Were I to attempt to be good to everyone, to the entire world and to all the creatures living in it, it would be a drop of fresh water in the salt sea. In other words, a wasted effort. Thus, I decided to do specific good; good which would not go to waste. I’m good to myself and my immediate circle.

You surround the dead with veneration and memory, you dream of immortality, and in your myths and legends there’s always someone being resurrected, conquering death. But were your esteemed late great-grandfather really to suddenly rise from the grave and order a beer, panic would ensue.

When there’s hunger you don’t share out your food, you just devour the weakest ones. This practice works among wolves, since it lets the healthiest and strongest individuals survive. But among sentient races selection of that kind usually allows the biggest bastards to survive and dominate the rest.

Life, it turns out, isn’t poetry! And do you know why? Because it’s so resistant to criticism!

We enter the world as a minute part of the life we are given, and from then on we are ever paying off debts. To ourselves. For ourselves. In order for the final reckoning to tally.

Everyone has some kind of debt. Such is life. Debts and liabilities, obligations, gratitude, payments, doing something for someone. Or perhaps for ourselves? For in fact we are always paying ourselves back and not someone else. Each time we are indebted we pay off the debt to ourselves. In each of us lies a creditor and a debtor at once and the art is for the reckoning to tally inside us. We enter the world as a minute part of the life we are given, and from then on we are ever paying off debts, To ourselves. For ourselves. In order for the final reckoning to tally.

A baptism of fire, the Witcher thought, furiously striking and parrying blows. I was meant to pass through fire for Ciri. And I’m passing through fire in a battle which is of no interest to me at all. Which I don’t understand in any way. The fire that was meant to purify me is just scorching my hair and face.

Ambition is the undoing of men. They always want what they know to be impossible and unattainable. And they are unaware of the attainable.

Your talk’s so clever it makes my head spin,’ Milva snorted. ‘And all your wisdom comes down to what’s under a woman’s skirt. Woeful philosophers.

The Tower of the Swallow

*Why should I give up revenge? On behalf of what? Moral principles? And what of the higher order of things, in which evil deeds are punished? For you, a philosopher and ethicist, an act of revenge is bad, disgraceful, unethical and illegal. But I ask: where is the punishment for evil? Who has it and grants access? The Gods, in which you do not believe? The great demiurge-creator, which you decided to replace the gods with? Or maybe the law? […] I know what evil is afraid of. Not your ethics, Vysogota, not your preaching or moral treaties on the life of dignity. Evil is afraid of pain, mutilation, suffering and at the end of the day, death! The dog howls when it is badly wounded! Writhing on the ground and growls, watching the blood flow from its veins and arteries, seeing the bone that sticks out from a stump, watching its guts escape its open belly, feeling the cold as death is about to take them. Then and only then will evil begin to beg, ‘Have mercy! I regret my sins! I’ll be good, I swear! Just save me, do not let me waste away!’. Yes, hermit. That is the way to fight evil! When evil wants to harm you, inflict pain >anticipate them, it’s best if evil does not expect it. But if you fail to prevent evil, if you have been hurt by evil, then avenge him! It is best when they have already forgotten, when they feel safe. Then pay them in double. In triple. An eye for an eye? No! Both eyes for an eye! A tooth for a tooth? No! All their teeth for a tooth! Repay evil! Make it wail in pain, howling until their eyes pop from their sockets. And then, you can look under your feet and boldly declare that what is there cannot endanger anyone, cannot hurt anyone. How can someone be a danger, when they have no eyes? How can someone hurt when they have no hands? They can only wait until they bleed to death.

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 to enduring the suffering. It’s about how you endure it.

Draw me not without reason; sheath me not without honour.

The line delineated by destiny is winding, but leads to this tower. Towards annihilation, towards the destruction of established values, of the established order. But there, above the tower, do you see? A swallow. The symbol of hope. Take this sword. And may what is to come about, come about.

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.

the Dank Wilderness was so dank it would have been difficult to imagine anything danker.

You often disguise gaps in your education with sarcastic or exaggerated simplifications which you consider witty.

The world you envision is made for a witcher. A witcher would never be short of work in it. Instead of codes, articles and peevish platitudes about justice, your idea creates lawlessness, anarchy, the licence and self-serving of princelings and mandarins, the officiousness of careerists wanting to endear themselves to their superiors, the blind vindictiveness of fanatics, the cruelty of assassins, retribution and sadistic vengeance. 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.