“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Anonymous

This is a metacommunicative recursive paradox. It is a joke about how people misunderstand each other, expressed in a way that ensures misunderstanding.

The statement is often incorrectly attributed to Alan Greenspan. The first known instance of it in print was in the 1950s. Greenspan was Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. There is no record of him actually saying the statement. His reputation for famously obscure economic statements resulted in the quote fitting him perfectly. His name was attached to it, not because he coined it, but because he embodied it. Greenspan once DID say that “if I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.”