“Mental sickness has set up a system by which it never loses. No matter what you do and no matter what the results are, you will win an ego-victory. That means that when you send your desires out into the world: 1. You will get what you want, or 2. You won't get what you want. Of you get what you want, the pseudo-nature says, "I have at last been given what I so richly deserve," and the sickness feels affirmed. If you don't get what you want, you feel sorry for yourself. You still feel affirmed because you get a feeling, and that's all that neurosis wants is a feeling.”

Reader's Digest.com interview http://www.rd.com/face-to-face-with-charlize-theron/article18057.html
Context: I was raised with the idea that you can feel sorry for yourself, but then, get over it, because it doesn't get you anywhere. … There was always this awareness that you have to be responsible for yourself in order to have what you want. And that meant "Be responsible with this little motorcycle that we're going to give you, because you're only five. If you're not, you're going to hurt yourself" -- which I did. My mom wasn't like, "Poor baby." She was like, "You do wheelies. That's what's going to happen." My mom's philosophy was, "If you get yourself in trouble, you've got to get yourself out of trouble."

Source: The Realm of Possibility

[10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

The Last Lecture (2007)

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Source: Betrayals

Source: A New Path to the Waterfall

Variant: well, sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.
Source: My Sister's Keeper

Variant: Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.