If a person makes a statement that you think is wrong — yes, even that you know is wrong — isn’t it better to begin by saying: “Well, now, look. I thought otherwise, but I may be wrong. I frequently am. And if I am wrong, I want to be put right. Let’s examine the facts.” There’s magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: “I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.

If you're dealing with a journalist who you perceive as being engaged in good faith, and there's plenty of them, when you explain a particular view that you know is outside of their worldview, ask them to explain it back to you to see that they got what you meant. And if you have that on tape and they try to mis-characterize you, so much the better, now you have evidence that this was done maliciously.

I think interviews can be fine, it's just there's this terrible fear of coming off wrongly or saying something that gets taken out of context. Because this could make up people's opinions of you.

When I discover I'm wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?

It is perhaps an ugly comment on the American press, but the function of the interviewer on most newspapers is to entertain, not to shed light. ... An interviewer soon begins to judge public figures on the basis of their entertainment value, overlooking their true importance. It is not easy to get an interview with Professor Franz Boas, the greatest anthropologist in the world, across a city desk, but a mild interview with Oom the Omnipotent will hit the bottom of page one under a two-column head. ... It is safe to write accurately only about the nuts and the bums. When a public figure does something ridiculous reporters may then write about him accurately.

If you give people a firm opinion, you run the risk of being wrong. Guess what? People remember when you’re wrong a lot more often than when you’re right. So the tendency is to include all the possibilities. It’s intellectually honest, even.

may all of the times that someone has made an incorrect assumption about you activate a new sense of humility and patience in your mind that stops you from doing the same thing to another person in the future

They do not try to inform people of their ignorance. When you accuse someone of being wrong, you close them off to considering another perspective by heightening their defenses. If you first validate their stance (“That’s interesting, I never thought of it that way…”) and then present your own opinion (“Something I recently learned is this…”) and then let them know that they still hold their own power in the conversation by asking their opinion (“What do you think about

My painful mistakes shifted me from having a perspective of “I know I’m right” to having one of “How do I know I’m right?

When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.

The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned and say, “How did you know?” He doesn’t realize something’s always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn’t know everybody’s always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it. This is the way of people. Suddenly ask what’s wrong and whether they open up and spill their guts or deny it and pretend you’re off, they’ll think you’re perceptive and understanding. They’ll either be grateful, or they’ll be frightened and avoid you from then on. Both reactions have their uses, as we’ll get to. You can play it either way. This works over 90 percent of the time.

When we want to correct someone usefully and show him he is wrong, we must see from what point of view he is approaching the matter, for it is usually right from that point of view, and we must admit this, but show him the point of view from which it is wrong. This will please him, because he will see that he was not wrong but merely failed to see every aspect of the question. Now, no one is annoyed at not seeing everything, but no one wants to be wrong; the reason for that may be that man is not by nature able to see everything, and by nature cannot be wrong from the point of view he adopts, as sense impressions are always true.

"I want people to understand everybody makes mistakes … I truly think a person’s character is determined by their admission of their mistakes and beyond that what they do about it … It’s really about looking forward, looking to the future, how can I make this wrong a right".

In interviews I like to take not one but several steps backwards. I like TV that asks the questions and listens to the answers. Too often those asking questions are too complacent and don't listen to the interviewer.