“All who make wishes are the same. When one wish comes into conflict with someone else's wish ... then one must make a choice. Either abandon one's own wish ... or crush the other's wish for the sake of your own.”

“Making wishes on the elephant is emotionally dangerous, because inevitably one's hopes rise abnormally high, unhealthily high, and when the wish does not come true, one's high hopes get crushed more painfully than if one had not asked for the help of supernatural powers. Therefore, one should always try to make the wish casually and forget about it instantly after making it, which is what I try to do now.”

“Opportunities and choices. When a person makes a heart wish, that wish resonates through the currents and things will happen to give the person an opportunity to make the wish come true. Like a hand offered and accepted.”

“If you have one wish, wish for everything to be exactly as it is. Then wait patiently for your wish to come true.”

“However if you wish unhappiness on someone else then the very strength of that wish will make you unhappy.”

“So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.”