J.M. Barrie Quotes

She did not yet know that Tink hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman.

But he has still a vague memory that he was a human once,

As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you can't see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you can't see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has, but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with a light behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal residences,

To live would be an awfully big adventure.

Oh, you mysterious girls, when you are fifty-two we shall find you out; you must come into the open then. If the mouth has fallen sourly yours the blame: all the meanness your youth concealed have been gathering in your face. But the pretty thoughts and sweet ways and dear, forgotten kindnesses linger there also, to bloom in your twilight like evening primroses.

For, to a child, the oddest of things, and the most richly coloured picture-book, is that his mother was once a child also.

It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent.

for things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track. We hear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful song: 'Avast belay, yo ho, heave to, A-pirating we go, And if we're parted by a shot We're sure to meet below!' A

Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse.

Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning.

Boy, why are you crying?

He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on sternly, 'I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the streets.

But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys.

They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego slipping from him.

All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in.

Our heroine knew that the mother would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so they stayed away for years and had a lovely time ...

A child should never go to bed, they only wake up a day older.

If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water ...

The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon, when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for mortals

You just think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter explained, "and they lift you up in the air.

Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end.

He decided to appeal to the fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed
to know a good deal.

But where do you live mostly now?"
With the lost boys."
Who are they?"
They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expanses. I'm captain."
What fun it must be!"
Yes," said cunning Peter, "but we are rather lonely. You see we have no female companionship."
Are none of the others girls?"
Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.

You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow Peter Pan's adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens.

It was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl on the rock; she was too proud to offer a vain resistance.

If you wish it.
Slightly: If you wish it?
Peter: IF YOU WISH IT.

to have faith is to have wings. Now,

Never is an awfully long time.

Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that was a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell. The awful thing was that Peter found this funny. "There he goes again!" he would cry gleefully as Michael suddenly dropped like a stone.

Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time.

Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to the best advantage.

My dog knows very little, but what little he does know he knows extraordinarily well.

We are all failures- at least the best of us are.

Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.

Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up there by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would suddenly shoot out of sight, to have some adventure in which they had no share.
He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had been saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it was, or he would come up with mermaid scales still sticking to him, and yet not be able to to say for certain what had been happening.
It was really rather irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid.

But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them vindictively as fast as possible.

Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.

Growing up is simply getting old. Growing up is when you don't believe anymore

Take care, lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe.

I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things.

All you need is Faith, Trust and a little Pixie Dust

Temper is a weapon that we hold by the blade.

Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.

Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers who fall to the ground in a fit, and Solomon's Seals juice is for bruises. They bruise very easily

Peter spoke indignantly. "You don't think I would kill him while he was sleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That's the way I always do." "I say! Do you kill many?" "Tons!

And as she was crossing to the day-nursery he added thoughtlessly, 'And shut that window. I feel a draught.'
'O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open for them, always, always.

All her tormentings of me turned suddenly into sweetnesses, and who could torment like this exquisite fury, wondering in sudden flame why she could give herself to anyone, while I wondered only why she could give herself to me. It may be that I wondered over-much. Perhaps that was why I lost her.

Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their nests; soon he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well as a blackbird, though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made nice little water-troughs near the nests and dug up worms for the young ones with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lore, and knew an east wind from a west wind by its smell, and he could see the grass growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks.

You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring-cleaning time comes?
Of course Peter promised, and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite easily. Funny. But she seemd satisfied.

To live will be an awfully big adventure.

One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.

One girl is worth more than twenty boys.

Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?"
Nothing, precious," she said; "they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.

Whenever a child says "I don't believe in fairies" there's a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead

Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence.

Of all the delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are night-lights.

Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change.

Again came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them. "Greeting, boys," he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then again was silence.
He frowned.
"I am back," he said hotly, "why do you not cheer?

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet OM (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937), more commonly known as J. M. Barrie, was a Scottish novelist and dramatist. He is best remembered for creating Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up, whom he based on his friends, the Llewelyn Davies boys. He is also credited with popularising the name "Wendy", which was very uncommon before he gave it to the heroine of Peter Pan. He was made a baronet in 1913; his baronetcy was not inherited. He was made a member of the Order of Merit in 1922. Source: Wikipedia

This is a difficult question, because it is quite impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them than on the mainland.

Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the same rate.

Some day,' said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get you.'
Hook wetted his dry lips, 'Aye,' he said, 'that's the fear that haunts me.

Life and death, the child and the mother, are ever meeting as the one draws into harbour and the other sets sail. They exchange a bright "All's well" and pass on.

This is absurd. It's just a dog.
Just a dog? *Just*?
[to Porthos]
J.M. Barrie: Porthos, don't listen!
[to Peter]
J.M. Barrie: Porthos dreams of being a bear, and you want to shatter those dreams by saying he's *just* a dog? What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That's like saying, "He can't climb that mountain, he's just a man", or "That's not a diamond, it's just a rock." Just.

Thus, when you cry out, 'Greedy! Greedy!' to the bird that flies
away with the big crust, you know now that you ought not to do this, for he is very likely taking it to Peter
Pan.

That fiend! Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.

They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthorn wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine,

It can be only the memory of some woman," said she, "that makes you so kind to me

I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us.

Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her. Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.

It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

Even though you want to try to, never grow up

When there's a smile in your heart, there's no better time to start

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

I don't know if you have ever seem a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.

The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord);

There is a saying in the Neverland that,every time you breathe, a grown-up dies.

I taught you to fight and to fly. What more could there be?

There never was a simpler, happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked.

The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not--. There is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Peter's cockiness. This

The game's up," he cried, "those boys have found a mother."

Affrighted though she was, Wendy swelled with pride.

"O evil day!" cried Starkey.

"What's a mother?" asked the ignorant Smee.

Wendy was so shocked that she exclaimed. "He doesn't know!" and always after this she felt that if you could have a pet pirate Smee would be her one.

It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.' 'Father's a cowardy custard.' 'So are you a cowardy custard.' 'I'm not frightened.' 'Neither am I frightened.' 'Well, then, take it.' 'Well, then, you take it.

It was then that Hook bit him.
Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter.

He (Captain Hook) was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding.

Stars are beautiful, but they may not take part in anything, they must just look on forever.

Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they had met their dead father and had a game with him.

Discipline. That's what fathers believe in. We must spank the children immediately before they try to kill you again. In fact, we should kill them.
Wendy: Father. I agree that they are ... perfectly horrid, but ... kill them and they should think themselves ... important.
The Lost Boys: So important, Peter.
Curly: And unique.
Wendy: I, propose something far more dreadful. Medicine. The sticky, sweet kind.
The Lost Boys: Kill us, Peter.

The moment where you doubt you can fly, you cease forever being able to do it.

Build a house?" exclaimed John.
"For the Wendy," said Curly.
"For Wendy?" John said, aghast. "Why, she is only a girl!"
"That," explained Curly, "is why we are her servants.

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In a word, the handsomest man I have ever seen, though, at the same time, perhaps slightly disgusting. " - Captain Hook at Eton

Oh, the cleverness of me!

You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you. That's where I'll be waiting.

Would you like an adventure now, or would like to have your tea first?

When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on. I

When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she really came, I shot her.