Be Careful What You Wish For/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


So she sat there and started crying about how messed up she was and how she had promised to stop using and now she was with me gettin high and how she wished that she was dead. And I thought "well..."

Parson: This isn't what I wished for.
Wanda: You didn't wish for this world, Parson Gotti. It wished for you.

An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path, right? He wasn't certain of which direction to go, and he'd forgotten both where he was traveling to and who he was. He'd sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: 'Now your third wish. What will it be?'
'Third wish?' The man was baffled. 'How can it be a third wish if I haven't had a first and second wish?'
'You've had two wishes already,' the hag said, 'but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That's why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.' She cackled at the poor berk. 'So it is that you have one wish left.'
'All right,' said the man, 'I don't believe this, but there's no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am.'
'Funny,' said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. 'That was your first wish.'

Morte's Story, as told in the Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts, Planescape: Torment

"All get what they want in the end. They do not always like it."

"You got what you wanted!
But you lost what you had!"

Be careful what you wish for, 'cause you just might get it; You just might get it; You just might get it (get it).

—"When I Grow Up", The Pussycat Dolls

Don't wish for elephants unless you own a zoo,
'Cause wishes have a way of coming true!

Careful what you wish
Careful what you say
Careful what you wish
You may regret it
Careful what you wish
You just might get it

—"King Nothing", Metallica

"When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers."

Karen BlixenOut of Africa[1]

Not so fast, Jafar, aren't you forgetting something? You wanted to be a genie, you got it. Everything that goes with it!

You'd better watch out
Oh, what you wish for
It'd better be worth it
So much to die for

—"Celebrity Skin", Hole

- "I wish, more than anything, more than life..."

Everyone from Into the Woods, generally right before It Got Worse

"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way'."

C. S. Lewis, writing about Hell

[please verify]

Isn't that what you wanted? That's what you said, anyway . . . all that I did was grant you your wish, doctor.

"Every wish that does not fit within the bounds of reason inevitably gives birth to some kind of distortion. It is an obvious conclusion that the outcome would be the worst. If you consider that a betrayal, then making wishes is a mistake to begin with."

I wanted all the attention, and instead it was going to you! I even started hoping that you would do something silly, so your modeling career would be over, but then, when it started happening, all I could think was, how could I want you to fail at something you love so much?

—Rarity, to Fluttershy, from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

You finally have everything you ever wanted. Call me when you get over it.

—Stacy Hirano, Phineas and Ferb, "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted"

"I just wanted to warn you about it. It only has a few wishes available per person, and ..."
"Let me guess: 'Be careful what you wish for because it might not be what you expect?'" Bob had a distinct feeling he was being played, and that he knew all the lines to boot.
"Oh good, you understand. I was just afraid you were like most mor--locals and didn't know about such things. You wouldn't believe how big of a mess they can get themselves into when they don't understand the rules."

Case Study: How Not To Wish, a few pages before Bob inadvertently merges himself with a girl's vagina

"You might want to be careful with your third wish. Otherwise you might wish you'd never been born."

Jafar, Aladdin

"Sometimes the most sadistic thing the DM can do to is to let the players have their own way."


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  1. A similar quote is commonly attributed to Oscar Wilde.
  2. referring to Dr. Tenma wishing his superiors were dead.