“No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves”

The expression “No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves” is the woman’s concise statement about the limits of wish and change. Spoken softly in a bar, it shifts the exchange from a joke about bumpers to a claim about human identity; the narrator immediately recognizes its resemblance to a bumper sticker, and her laughter dispels the shadow that had crossed the conversation.

The Claim and Its Setting

The woman introduces the thought as what she is trying to tell the narrator, speaking more softly and scratching an earlobe. Its balanced clauses join two forms of attempted transformation: wishing for something and going far away. Neither, she argues, allows people to become anything other than themselves. The expression thus frames selfhood as something that persists through both desire and distance, without specifying what the woman had wished for or what journey she may have in mind.

From Reflection to Slogan

The line follows a joking exchange about a possible bumper sticker: “Bumpers are for denting.” The narrator has been looking at the woman’s mouth as she speaks. After her more serious statement, he answers by calling it another good bumper sticker and repeating its central thought in shortened form: “No matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves.” His reply makes the idea sound readily portable, but it also drops the original reference to wishes, narrowing the formulation even as it echoes its force.

Effect on the Conversation

The woman laughs aloud, with visible pleasure, and the shadow is gone. The exchange does not settle the question of what she would wish for; instead, it turns toward the narrator’s imagined response. Resting her elbow on the bar and looking at him, she asks what he would have wished for in her position. He clarifies that she means the night of his twentieth birthday. The expression therefore serves both as a reflection on the limits of wishing and as a hinge in the conversation, leading from her account of selfhood to his own hypothetical wish.