All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

This line comes from “The Boxer,” a song written by Paul Simon and released by Simon & Garfunkel on the 1970 album Bridge Over Troubled Water (also issued as a single in 1969). The song is framed as a first-person narrative of a young man’s hardships—poverty, loneliness, and repeated setbacks—told in a style that blends folk storytelling with a confessional tone. The quoted line appears in the song’s opening verse, where the narrator reflects on how people (including himself) filter reality through desire and self-protection, especially amid disappointment and social noise.

The line captures selective perception: even surrounded by “lies and jests” (deception, mockery, empty talk), a person tends to accept what confirms hopes or needs and ignore what threatens them. It suggests a psychological defense mechanism—self-deception as survival—while also hinting at the broader social condition of misinformation and cynicism. In the context of “The Boxer,” the idea deepens the narrator’s vulnerability: he is not only battered by circumstance but also by the human tendency to misread the world, to cling to consoling interpretations, and to tune out painful truths until experience forces recognition.