“You can't make people listen to you. People only hear what they want to hear.”
Kieran Scott (1974) American writer
Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: That's the problem with the Drudge-Rush-Fox axis-of-evil news bubble. Nothing gets into these people's heads. They only listen to what they want to hear. They listen to what confirms what they believe. And what they believe is what they got from these people to begin with.
You know, when Glenn Beck had his big rally on the mall, he said something like — he at one point said, "Today, I was holding George Washington's inaugural in my hand." No — you can't do that — it's in Plexiglas. You can't — it's 200 years old. You can't give that to people to pass around and smudge up with their grimy fingers. But it didn't matter, because it never matters to these people because nothing they say is ever fact-checked. The governor of Arizona talks about how illegals — you saw this on the news — were beheading people in Arizona. When the press asked her about it, because it was patently untrue, she just ran away. Sarah Palin never talks to the press because they might ask her a question that she doesn't have a pat answer for. They know they don't have to deal with reality, because they don't have to go to what used to be the mainstream press.
“You can't make people listen to you. People only hear what they want to hear.”
Kieran Scott (1974) American writer
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird
Errol Morris (1948) American filmmaker and writer
Source: Predilections by Mark Singer http://www.errolmorris.com/content/profile/singer_predilections.html
Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director
Bigger and Blacker (Album Version, 1999)
“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.”
Steven D. Levitt book Think Like a Freak
Source: Think Like a Freak
Eddie Mair (1965) Scottish broadcaster
Before a long-term weather forecast given on Radio 4's PM[citation needed]
From PM and Broadcasting House
Sue Townsend (1946–2014) English writer and humorist
Source: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4