The most clever exchange I ever read was delivered by my favorite fictional father-figure, Atticus Finch. He demonstrates, simply, the skill I hope to someday master:

From: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

“Son,” he said to Jem, “I’m going to tell you something and tell you one time: stop tormenting that man. That goes for the two of you.”

“We weren’t makin’ fun of him, we weren’t laughin’ at him,” said Jem, “we were just-”

“So that was what you were doing, wasn’t it?”

“Makin’ fun of him?”

“No,” said Atticus, “putting his life’s history on display for the edification of the neighborhood.”

Jem seemed to swell a little. “I didn’t say we were doin’ that, I didn’t say it!”

Atticus grinned dryly. “You just told me,” he said.


It is the art of asking questions, without asking the specific question, that will lead you to the answer you seek. People know what information you want to pull from them. However, human nature makes them protective of any inquiry that is close to that secret information.

But sometimes, by asking different questions, or by painting a story around the protected information, the need to ask something taboo becomes moot.

I find this a particularly useful skill for a blonde. Primarily because no one, including children over the age of 10, suspects lil’ ole me to be smart enough to manipulate an answer out of them.

Sometimes, they’re right (even the 10 year-olds).

But I’ll keep practicing. Not because I have a desire to be the next Howard Morland (a layman who used this technique to extract the secret to making the H-bomb out of nuclear physicists). Or the inclination to torture my future children by knowing all the secrets they should keep to themselves. But because it’s fun.

And by asking questions, you get to learn a lot about people...like all the good stuff that makes them tick.