Quotes from book
Volkhavaar

Volkhavaar
Tanith Lee

VOLKHAVAAR is a novel of witchcraft and wonders on a world far removed from those we know. Here the gods contend for power - the Dark forces against the Light - and here an entire city and its land is plunged into the shadow of an eil beyond anything conceivable. It is the story of Shaina the slave girl and of Volk the outcast who enslaved himself to cosmic forces to gain total power - and of how they were finally to meet and flash - with an entire world as their prize.

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“When a road is very dark it is hard to see the milestones on it.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 9 (p. 78)

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“‘Not everything that walks is a man,’” said the boulder conversationally, “‘and not everything that lies quiet is a stone,’ as the wolf remarked when the serpent bit him.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 1 (p. 12)

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“Kernik had stumbled on an immutable truth, a truth older than the world. Priests claimed the gods made men, but this was not so. Men made the gods. Firstly, by forming them in clay, by chipping them from stone. Secondly, and more importantly, by believing in them, believing in them utterly.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 6 (p. 52)

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“What Is, is, what Was, was, but what is To Be, may be otherwise.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 20 (p. 170)

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“Woana was the most talented, amazing and prodigious human in the world, and the most beautiful too. For Woana, if she had summoned them, those bright eyes in the sky would have danced down to earth; but naturally Woana was far too sophisticated to stoop to such a thing. Woana was, in fact, unrivalled, peerless. The reason being that Mitz belonged to her, and Mitz’s feline ego would never consider that anyone, but the most sublime, could have acquired her own exceptional self.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 17 (p. 144)

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“They say the promise of a witch is like a plain woman, seldom remembered.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 11 (p. 100)

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“The sun in his golden chariot had driven almost to the last meadow of the sky.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 1 (p. 9; opening line)

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“Who knew? If the illusion is quite perfect, who is to say it is not real?”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 9 (p. 78)

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“Night, the dark widow, came walking on the hills.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 7 (p. 69)

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“The irony of her story is merely that her love became, in the end, her motive rather than her goal, the doorway rather than the house.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 22 (p. 192)

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“It was as easy to be alone with six kin as it is to be alone by yourself, and maybe easier.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 8 (pp. 73-74)

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“Having failed, do you accept failure, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn to other things? When night comes, do you accept the blackness of it, saying only: Well, it is so. I will turn and wait for morning? Or do you go on striving to light a candle against that dark however often the wind blows out the flame, however often the night returns?”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 11 (p. 102)

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“Tonight it was to be a play for aristocrats to watch, concerning gods and shepherds; it was the humble villages that clamored for princesses and emperors.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 9 (p. 84)

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“This sight was terrible, more terrible than words convey, for words are cowards as men are, and hide things as men do.”

Tanith Lee book Volkhavaar

Source: Volkhavaar (1977), Chapter 15 (p. 133)

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