It is easy to grow angry when criticized. And who would not fight back when barbs are being sunk into one's skin? Who would remain still, receiving the stinging thorns with stupid stoicism? Or flee as a coward?

And yet, there must be a third way, a more intelligent way. It is delicious to fight back and win; it is something else to understand and be understood. Not the passive-aggressiveness of a deadly silence, but not weakness either. I am not yet fully certain what this quality is, nor how to enter into it, but I do know that it ennobles the human being above the level of the animal.

"There is a third way to negotiate, a way neither hard nor soft,but rather both hard *and* soft."
- Getting to Yes