ending quotation in CAPOTE

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:53 PM -0500 1/22/06, James Landau wrote:
>I have encountered (sorry, I have no citations) a proverb "Never wish
>[pray] for something; you might get it."  Is this proverb related to the
>Wilde/St. Teresa quote?

I've usually heard it as "Be careful what you pray for; you just might get it."

Larry

>
>>  [Original Message]
>>  From: Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>>  To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Date: 1/22/2006 9:51:42 AM
>>  Subject: Re: ending quotation in CAPOTE
>>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: ending quotation in CAPOTE
>>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---
>>
>>  On Sun, 22 Jan 2006, Stephen Goranson wrote:
>>
>>  > I haven't seen the movie, but according to the introduction to Capote's
>>  > Complete Stories, he planned a book called Answered Prayers, a title he
>>  > said he got from a quote of St. Teresa of Avila: "More tears are shed
>>  > over answered prayers than unanswered ones."
>>
>>  Thanks for the information.  The more usual attribution for this thought
>>  is Oscar Wilde's "When the gods wish to punish us they answer our
>>  prayers."  I have not come across the attribution to St. Teresa of Avila
>>  before, and would welcome any further documentation for that.
>>
>>  Fred Shapiro
>>
>>
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>>  Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
>>  Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
>>     Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
>>  Yale Law School                             forthcoming
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