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1. "as it so often happens that feasting and butchery begin just after the death of the dragon and before you know it heads are rolling like pears in an orchard. When the treasure is found, the hunters launch themselves at one another's throats.
2. I... I love the legends of the elves; they're so beautiful. It's a pity that humans don't have such legends. Maybe one day they'll create some? But what will their legends be like? All around, everywhere you look, is dullness and uncertainty. Even something born of beauty soon leads to boredom and banality, commonplace, the human ritual, the tedious rhythm of life.
3. "Emotions, whims and lies, fascinations and games. Feelings and the lack thereof... gifts that should not be accepted... lies and truth. What is right? To deny a lie? Or to state a fact? And if the fact is a lie, then what is truth? Who is so full of feelings that it tears them apart and who is a cold and empty shell of a skull? Who? What is right, Geralt? What is the truth?"
4. "In Novigrad, Geralt, there are houses made of brick, paved city streets, a seaport, warehouses, four watermills, slaughterhouses, sawmills, a large manufactory of pointed-toe shoes, and all desirable guilds and artisans, a mint, eight banks and nineteen pawnbrokers, a breathtaking castle and guard tower, and then every sort of diversion: a scaffold, a gibbet equipped with a trapdoor, thirty-five inns, a theater, a zoo, a bazaar and twelve brothels... I don't remember how many temples. Lots, in any case. And all these women, Geralt, proper ones, combed and perfumed... The satins, the velours, the silks, the bustles, the ribbons. Oh, Geralt! The verse writes itself!"
5. And even then, magic wouldn't be any help, because the area is saturated with weak magical signals. Half the houses have magical locks; three quarters of the people wear an amulet for some purpose or another: to protect against thieves, lice, indigestion... The number is infinite."
6. You are indeed nothing but a nice little doppler whose friends nicknamed him Dudu. Whatever appearance you borrow, you always remain the same. You only know how to copy what is good in us, because the parts that are bad, you don't understand. That is what you are, doppler."
7. "Tell him... tell him to go dry out!" "What did she say?" "She wants you," explained the witcher, "to drown yourself."
8. "I think the lowest depths of the bloody ocean hide an enormous monster, a revolting scaly beast, a huge toad with horns on its repulsive face. From time to time, he swallows the water along with everything that lives in it: fish, seals, turtles, everything. After he swallows it all, he makes water: that's the tide. What do you think?"
9. "The ocean is vast, Agloval. No-one yet knows what the horizon hides, if it does hide something. The ocean is larger than the largest of the wild forests from which you drove the elves. It is more difficult to cross than any mountain or valley where you massacred the dwarves. At the bottom of the ocean lives a race outfitted with cuirasses, one that knows the secrets of forging metal.
10. At the end of the evening, Little-Eye sang with Dandelion the celebrated duet of Cynthia and Vertven, a marvelous love song beginning with the words: "These are not my first tears..." Geralt had the impression that even the trees leaned in to listen to the troubadours.
11. The ballad recounted the story of a certain witcher and of a certain poet: the circumstances of their encounter at the seaside, amid the squalling of the gulls; their mutual love at first sight; the sincerity of their love; their indifference toward a death that could not destroy this love nor separate them.
12. Dandelion knew that few would believe the story told by the ballad, but he didn't care: one writes a ballad for the emotion it conveys. Dandelion could have changed, some years later, the content of that ballad to reflect the truth. He did not. The true story was indeed moving. Who would hear, indeed, that the witcher and the poet parted and never saw each other again? That four years later, Little-Eye died of smallpox in Vizima during an epidemic? That Dandelion carried her body in his arms far from the funeral pyres burning away in the city, alone and quiet, into the forest, and buried with her, according to her wishes, two objects: her lute and the azure pearl with which she was never parted. No, Dandelion kept the first version of his ballad, but he never sang it again. Not ever, for anyone.
13. In the morning, a hungry and furious werewolf took advantage of the darkness of the night that had not yet dissipated and invaded the camp; but, recognizing the voice of Dandelion, he listened for a moment to the melody before disappearing into the forest.
14. Human, out of Brokilone, thought the witcher. Even if you are fifteen, crossing the forest, driven by fear, without knowing your way. Even if you are seventy, forced to gather firewood, because your infirmity has warranted that you be chased from the cottage and deprived of food. Even if you are six, drawn by the flowers that bloom in the sun-drenched clearing. Out of Brokilone! Whistling, impact.
15. The dryad was trying - deliberately, Geralt knew - to make the man she was guiding collapse finally into the brush, complaining, exhausted, unable to continue. Too young to know that he was a witcher, she was unaware that she was not dealing with a human.
16. He had already met a number of young princesses, even of royal blood, taken in by traveling theater troupes and happy to have escaped from a king who, though decrepit, was always eager for descendants. He had encountered the sons of kings, preferring the uncertain life of a mercenary rather than marriage to a lame and syphilitic princess chosen by his father for an inheritance as questionable as it was miserable, but guaranteeing an alliance and the sustainability of the dynasty.
17. Evidently, he thought, young dryads are fond of stories. Just like young witchers: they are rarely told fictional stories. Young dryads fall asleep to the rustling trees; young witchers to the ache of their muscles. Our eyes shone, like Braenn's, when we listened to Vesemir's stories, there at Kaer Morhen. It was a long time ago... so long...
18. "Weren't there any trees in the grounds of Castle Nastrog, Ciri? Instead of coming to Brokilone, you could have climbed to the top and waited for Kistrin to lose interest in the wedding." "Are you making fun of me?" "Yes." "You know, I can't stand you." "That's awful, Ciri, you've touched me right in the heart."
19. "Geralt?" "Yes?" "What does that mean, Gwyn... bleidd?" "White Wolf. That's what the dryads call me."
20. "Geralt," Ciri murmured. "These houses are growing! They have leaves." "They are made of living trees," explained the witcher. "That's the way the dryads live, and that's how they construct their homes. A dryad never hurts a tree by cutting or sawing. They know nevertheless how to grow the branches to form shelters."
21. You, the elder races, you love to repeat that hatred is a stranger to you, that the sentiment remains a human specialty. That is not true. You also know hate, you know what hatred is. You only dress it up differently: with more wisdom, less violence. And so perhaps with more cruelty.
22. "It is easy to kill with a bow, girl. It is easy to let go of the string and think: This isn't me, it's the arrow. My hands do not bear the blood of this boy, it's the arrow that killed him, not me. But the arrow does not dream at night. I wish for you not to dream either, little blue-eyed dryad. Farewell, Braenn."
23. "Duettaedn aefcirrdn Cderme Gleddyv. Yn esseth. " "Do you know what that means?" "The sword of destiny has two edges... You are one of them."
24. "Ciri." He looked into her eyes, nodding and smiling. "You can believe me: you are the biggest surprise I have ever met." "Ah!" The girl's face cleared. "Then it's true! I am the subject of destiny. Nanny predicted that a witcher would come, that he would have white hair and that he would take me with him. Grandmother cried... How will it be? Where are you taking me, tell me?" "Home, to Cintra."
25. There is no destiny, he thought. It doesn't exist. The only thing that is predestined for us all is death. The second side of the sword with two edges is death. The first is me. The second is the death that follows me step by step. I cannot, I have no right to expose you to it, Ciri.
26. "Master Yurga! He said something!" "What? What did he say?" "I'm not sure... A name..." "What name?" "Yennefer..."
27. "Yes... it happens. The world around us is horrible," he murmured at last. "But that's not a reason for all of us to behave so execrably. Good is necessary. That's what my father taught me and that's what I will teach my sons."
28. As you yourself rightly remarked, this is not a fairy tale, but life, sickening and cruel, through which we are trying, by the plague and cholera, to live decently and to strictly limit the amount of harm we inflict on others. In one tale, the queen must actually beg the witcher and he responds by stamping his foot. In life, the queen could simply say: 'Do not take this child, please.' And the witcher answered: 'Since you insist, my queen, so be it.' He then resumed his journey at dusk. Such is life. The storyteller would not get a cent from his audience if he told such nonsense. At most, a kick in the rear. Because it's boring."
29. Yurga, you know what people say about witchers? That no-one knows which is worse... them, or the monsters that they destroy."
30. Lytta Neyd, alias Coral. She had been dubbed with nickname because of the color of the cream she applied to her lips. She had once spoken ill of Geralt to the King Belohun, who then imprisoned him for a week in a dungeon. As soon as he was released, he went to find her to ask for her reasons and had found himself in bed with the beautiful woman, without knowing how, for another week.
31. "You've finally found me! Oh, Geralt! I waited all this time! It took so long... We'll stay together now, won't we? Now we'll be together, right? Say it, Geralt! Forever! Say it!" "Forever, Ciri."