“Communication is — start by understanding — your own understanding about people. Even though you want them to understand you, you know, it is — unless you understand people, it is almost impossible.”

Source: Sphere

Source: Short fiction, Hardfought (1983), p. 69

The Camelot Project interview (1996)
Context: When the legend is retold, it mirrors the reality of the time, and one can learn from studying how various authors have attempted to retell the story. I don't think we have an obligation to change it radically. I think that if we ever move too far from the basic story, we would lose something very precious. I don't, for instance, approve of fantasy that attempts to go back and rewrite the Middle Ages until it conforms to political correctness in the twentieth century. That removes all the benefit from reading the story. If you don't understand other people in their time and why they did what they did, then you don't understand your own past. And when you lose your past, you lose some potential for your own future.

Source: Walks with Men

Interview, Popjustice.com http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4801&Itemid=9

Source: The Wretched of the Earth

Variant: People understand me so little that they do not even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.
Source: The Journals of Kierkegaard

Source: When God Whispers Your Name