The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2)

by Philip Pullman

“Seems to me—” Lee said, feeling for the words, “seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed. Or is that wrong, Dr. Grumman? I’m only an ignorant aeronaut. I’m so damn ignorant I believed it when I was told that shamans had the gift of flight, for example. Yet here’s a shaman who hasn’t.”

Life is hard, Mr. Scoresby, but we cling to it all the same.”