# Quote — Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

> 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."

- Author: [Michael Ende](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende.md)
- Book: [The Neverending Story](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende/the-neverending-story.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende/the-neverending-story/bastian-had-shown

## More from this book

> Slowly the boy without a name reached for the gold chain around his neck and divested himself of AURYN. He bent down and carefully laid the Gem in the snow before Atreyu. As he did so, he took another look at the two snakes, the one light, the other dark, which were biting each other's tail and formed an oval. Then he let the amulet go.
>
> In that moment AURYN, the golden Gem, became so bright, so radiant that he had to close his eyes as though dazzled by the sun. When he opened them again, he saw that he was in a vaulted building, as large as the vault of the sky. It was built from blocks of golden light. And in the middle of this immeasurable space lay, as big as the ramparts of a town, the two snakes.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende/the-neverending-story/slowly-the-boy.md)

> Your life is short, son. Ours is long. Much too long. But we both live in time. You a short time. We a long time. The Childlike Empress has always been there. But she's not old. She has always been young. She still is. Her life isn't measured by time, but by names. She needs a new name. She keeps needing new names.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende/the-neverending-story/your-life-is-short.md)

> Human passions have mysterious ways, in children as well as grown-ups. Those affected by them can't explain them, and those who haven't known them have no understanding of them at all. Some people risk their lives to conquer a mountain peak. No one, not even they themselves, can really explain why. Others ruin themselves trying to win the heart of a certain person who wants nothing to do with them. Still others are destroyed by their devotion to the pleasures of the table. Some are so bent on winning a game of chance that they lose everything they own, and some sacrifice every thing for a dream that can never come true. Some think their only hope of happiness lies in being somewhere else, and spend their whole lives traveling from place to place. And some find no rest until they have become powerful. In short, there are as many different passions as there are people.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/michael-ende/the-neverending-story/human-passions-have.md)