When someone insults you in writing, when they gloat, when they plot against you where you can see it, everything in you wants to respond — to defend yourself, to correct the record, to warn them that they are wrong about you, to land a blow of your own.

The urge to reply is almost physical.

And it is almost always a mistake, because a reply does two things, both of them bad for you: it relieves your own tension, which you do not actually want relieved, because your tension is fuel; and it tells your opponent that you are engaged, that you are watching, that a fight is on, which makes them careful.

The single most useful thing I learned in years of practicing law is that you almost never have to win the argument in the moment.