The best way to find things out .. is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing of a gun - bang it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets, and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun does.

    by Elspeth Huxley     in The Flame Trees of Thika, p. 272