My perennial mistake, which was especially prominent in the current brain-death controversy, is to assume that if I write something carefully, people will read it carefully. I should not have been surprised that many people are strongly condemning what I wrote based on a careless reading of it - because this sort of thing has happened many times before. And I should not have considered it adequate to make important points once - if something is important, it should be repeated again and again and again. In this post I would like to highlight, address and dispel the most common misunderstandings of my approach and criticisms thereof. The examples of the misconceptions about my views are from comments on R. Maryles' blog and elsewhere.