Everyone, every breathing person can make the winning argument.

The parent-child mirror: In the days of my early parenthood, I had not learned that a relationship is always a mirror—that children cannot respect us if we do not respect them—that if we use power against our children our children will use power, sometimes in perverted forms, in return. I had not yet learned that if we treat our children as friends

If I were required to choose the single essential skill from the many that make up the art of argument, it would be the ability to listen.

The argument with children is won many years before adolescence sets in. It is won with unconditional love, with respect, and with trust. It is won by having been the child's advocate, the child's friend from the beginning, without having expected anything in return. It is not a conditional love given with the expectation of future compliance or

Logic is power. If logic is on your side, ride it—ride it all the way. If logic is not on your side, if logic leads to an unjust result, it will have no power. As Samuel

Yet, in forty years I have never once cursed a judge. I have never once been held in contempt. I have never lost it. Why? Is it because I exhibit such extraordinary self-control? I think not. The reason I have never slipped over the edge is because I know better. I know that if I slip over the edge I will pay the price, and the price will not be

The chairman had introduced me simply by saying, "Here, in the flesh, is a living, breathing enemy of free speech, one who, by contagious hyperbole, was able to talk a jury into foregoing our sacred rights to free speech and to thereafter award his client twenty-five million dollars in damages for her alleged hurt feelings. That's justice, right?

Two simple elements are necessary: the first, preparation, which we have already explored in Chapter 8; and the second, mustering the courage to give one's self over to the magical power of the self.

Perhaps I learned that children know the difference between right and wrong, that they do not need to be punished for wrongs they did not intend to commit, and that the wrong itself contains its own punishment. My father was a very wise man. He understood children.