John Christopher, Beyond the Burning Lands

"I think before I act---and then think again. I am not entirely a coward, but I do not lose myself in action as you do."

"He said, speaking more to himself than to me: 'It was knowledge I sought. Knowledge which is clean and pure, far above the cheating and deceiving in which most men spend their lives.'And do you not find it,' I asked, 'this knowledge which you prize'In part,' he said. 'I find other things, too. Things I do not desire but must accept. There is still cheating and deceiving."