The way of the wishes

Some days later they had another serious talk.

Bastian had shown the lion the inscription on the reverse side of the Gem. "What do you suppose it means?" he asked. "'DO WHAT YOU WISH.' That must mean I can do anything I feel like. Don't you think so?"

All at once Grograman's face looked alarmingly grave, and his eyes glowed."No," he said in his deep, rumbling voice. "It means that you must do what you really and truly want. And nothing is more difficult."

"What I really and truly want? What do you mean by that?"

"It's your own deepest secret and you yourself don't know it."

"How can I find out?"

"By going the way of your wishes from one to another, from first to last. It will take you to what you really and truly want."

"That doesn't sound so hard," said Bastian.

"It is the most dangerous of all journeys."

"Why?" Bastian asked. "I'm not afraid."

"That isn't it," Grograman rumbled. "It requires the greatest honesty and vigilance, because there's no other journey on which it's so easy to lose yourself forever."

"Do you mean because our wishes aren't always good?" Bastian asked.

The lion lashed the sand he was lying on with his tail. His ears lay flat, he screwed up his nose, and his eyes flashed fire. Involuntarily Bastian ducked when Grograman's voice one again made the Earth temble: "What do you know about wishes? How would you know what's good and what isn't?"

In the days that followed Bastian thought a good deal about what the Many-Coloured Death had said. There are some things, however, that we cannot fathom by thinking about them, but only by experience. So it was not until much later, after all manner of adventures, that he thought back on Graograman´s words and began to understand them.

—The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende. Chapter XV – Graograman, the Many-Colored Death.