If I were a magician who could make things possible, I'd have lemonade always tasting as it did on the evening Francesco explained how right it was for the Italian moon to be a feminine moon. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be able to understand all languages every evening between eight and nine. If I were a magician who could make things possible, all dams would keep their promises. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be really brave.

...there's not enough of anything to go around except people and death.

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.

What we wish for others determines what we allow for ourselves. Unknown Stop the mindless wishing that things would be different. Rather than wasting time and emotional and spiritual energy in explaining why we don't have what we want, we can start to pursue other ways to get it. •Greg Anderson A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought. •Jean De La Bruyère Wishes expand in direct proportion to the resources available for their gratification. •Robert Dato A wish is a desire without an attempt. •Farmer Digest Oh, the secret life of man and woman -- dreaming how much better we would be than we are if we were somebody else or even ourselves, and feeling that our estate has been unexploited to its fullest. •Zelda Fitzgerald Men try to run life according to their wishes; life runs itself according to necessity. •Jean Toomer Some people develop a wishbone where their backbone should be. •Anonymous Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible. •St. Augustine When you love someone all your saved-up wishes start coming out. •Elizabeth Bowen Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires. •Goethe Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

But then, liars do make the best magicians, and he happened to be exceptional.

He's like a magician out there in drills we do. It's amazing some of the things he can do with the glove.