“But I know what's important to me, and what isn't. And I think I know what people can get used to, and what they can even learn to like.”

"Doing What I Know" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Doing What I Know" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlkC9AFrSNU (song on YouTube)

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), p. 5

Part V, ch. 26 (Mary Lewis)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Source: The world goes crazy for Lady Gaga (2009)
Context: I have found that my work has to be both deep and shallow … All of my songs have meaning, all of my clothing has iconography buried into it. But by the same token, it's just as special if you look at it in its shallowest form. A quick moment of melody, a beautiful dress. People think, "Gaga's so sweet", or "Gaga sucks". The point is that it's memorable. For commercial art to be taken seriously as fine art is a very unusual and difficult task. I think that a lot of people don't get it and a lot of people don't know what to make of me. And, you know what? I'm OK with that.

"The Teacher"
Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Context: "You will have to know life," she declared, and her voice trembled with earnestness. She took hold of George Willard’s shoulders and turned him about so that she could look into his eyes. A passer-by might have thought them about to embrace. "If you are to become a writer you’ll have to stop fooling with words," she explained. "It would be better to give up the notion of writing until you are better prepared. Now it’s time to be living. I don’t want to frighten you, but I would like to make you understand the import of what you think of attempting. You must not become a mere peddler of words. The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say."

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: 1980s-1990s, Sensemaking in Organizations, 1995, p. 25
Context: In the recipe, How can I know what I think until I see what I say, saying equates to variation, seeing equates to selection of meaning in what was said, and thinking equates to retention of an interpretation. The retained interpretation may then be imposed subsequently to interpret similar saying (retention is credited) in order to construct cumulative understanding, test past labels for their validity, or generalize older labels to newer events.

lecture I: "The Uncertainty of Science"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

2000s, Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation (2001)
Context: !-- I was getting 8 to 10 orders [for tapes of Emacs] a month. And, if necessary, I could have lived on just that, because --> I've always lived cheaply. I live like a student, basically. And I like that, because it means that money is not telling me what to do. I can do what I think is important for me to do. It freed me to do what seemed worth doing. So make a real effort to avoid getting sucked into all the expensive lifestyle habits of typical Americans. Because if you do that, then people with the money will dictate what you do with your life. You won't be able to do what's really important to you.<!-- line 422