Barrie Quotes

They took it for granted that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus children are ever so ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones. ~ J.M. Barrie

Life is a cup of tea; the more heartily we drink the sooner we reach the dregs. ~ James M. Barrie

Men's second childhood begins when a woman gets a hold of him. ~ James M. Barrie

To live would be an awfully big adventure. ~ J.M. Barrie

Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning. ~ J.M. Barrie

A strange smile was playing about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered. While that smile was on his face no one dared address him; all they could do was to stand ready to obey. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children. ~ J.M. Barrie

they gave him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and soon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and higher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops. It ~ J.M. Barrie

What is afraid?' asked Peter longingly. He thought it must be some splendid thing. 'I do wish you would teach me how to be afraid, Maimie,' he said. ~ J.M. Barrie

The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this world, are dead
young mothers, returned to see how their children fare. There is
no other inducement great enough to bring the departed back.
They glide into the acquainted room when day and night, their
jailers, are in the grip, and whisper, "How is it with you, my
child?" but always, lest a strange face should frighten him, they
whisper it so low that he may not hear. They bend over him to
see that he sleeps peacefully, and replace his sweet arm beneath
the coverlet, and they open the drawers to count how many little
vests he has. They love to do these things.

What is saddest about ghosts is that they may not know their
child. They expect him to be just as he was when they left him,
and they are easily bewildered, and search for him from room to
room, and hate the unknown boy he has become. Poor, passionate
souls, they may even do him an injury. These are the ghosts that
go wailing about old houses, and foolish wild stories are
invented to explain what is all so pathetic and simple. I know
of a man who, after wandering far, returned to his early home to
pass the evening of his days in it, and sometimes from his chair
by the fire he saw the door open softly and a woman's face
appear. She always looked at him very vindictively, and then
vanished. Strange things happened in this house. Windows were < ~ J.M. Barrie

The last thing he ever said to me was, 'Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing. ~ J.M. Barrie

She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly. ~ J.M. Barrie

Those who are prepared to die are most prepared to live. ~ James M. Barrie

Thus did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

We are all failures- at least the best of us are. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

Ah, Mr. War, sir. It seems that owing to circumstances completely beyond my control, there's been a bit of a cock up in the bravado department. I may indeed have come across as being more brave than in fact I am. ~ Chris Barrie As Arnold Rimmer On Red Dwarf

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had forgotten them all. ~ J.M. Barrie

Anything is possible if you wish hard enough. ~ James M. Barrie

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

My dog knows very little, but what little he does know he knows extraordinarily well. ~ J.M. Barrie

Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was right; there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it is lock-out time. The iron bars are up for life. ~ J.M. Barrie

Do you believe in fairies? ... If you believe, clap your hands! ~ J.M. Barrie

Peter,' she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are your exact feelings for me?'
Those of a devoted son, Wendy.'
I thought so,' she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end of the room.
You are so queer,' he said, frankly puzzled, 'and Tiger Lily is just the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.'
No, indeed, it is not,' Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make. ~ James M. Barrie

Oh, God, if I were sure I were to die tonight I would repent at once. It is the commonest prayer in all languages. ~ James M. Barrie

Better for Hook,' he cried, 'if he had had less ambition.' It was in his darkest hours only that he referred to himself in the third person. 'No ~ J.M. Barrie

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 ~ J.M. Barrie

It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if they did not admire him. ~ J.M. Barrie

On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more. ~ J.M. Barrie

Everytime a child says 'I don't believe in fairies' there is a a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead. ~ James M. Barrie

I taught you to fight and to fly. What more could there be? ~ J.M. Barrie

How shall we ever know if it's morning if there's no servant to pull up the blinds? ~ James M. Barrie

Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the old one simply would not meet, but he never came. "Perhaps he is ill," Michael said. "You know he is never ill." Michael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver, "Perhaps there is no such person, Wendy!" and then Wendy would have cried if Michael had not been crying. ~ James M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

to have faith is to have wings. Now, ~ J.M. Barrie

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 ~ J.M. Barrie

When bad things happen or you don't get your own way, if you can open your heart to compassion instead of shunting it down in anger, you're going to create more light. ~ Barrie Dolnick

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

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); ~ J.M. Barrie

The man who is in real danger is the man who thinks he is perfectly safe. ~ James M. Barrie

...the prose tradition had died two centuries before and the recreation of a full canon of all-purpose Scots was beyond even Scott's skill, nor did he attempt it, except, perhaps in the magnificent Wandering Willie's Tale. He took the only course open to him, of writing his narrative in English and using Scots only for those who, given their social class, would still be speaking it: daft Davie Gellatley in Waverley, the gypsies and Dandie Dinmont in Guy Mannering, the Headriggs in Old Mortality, Edie Ochiltree and the fisher-folk of Musselcrag in The Antiquary, Andrew Fairservice in Rob Roy, the Deanses in The Heart of Midlothian, Meg Dods in St. Ronan's Well, and so on.

The procedure gave reality to the Scots characters whose ways and ethos it was Scott's main purpose to portray, and the author in his best English, which lumbered along rather badly at times, did little more than lay out the setting for the action and act as impressario for the characters as they played their roles...

...Scott's felicity in conveying character and action through their Scots speech inspired his imitators for the next hundred years - Susan Ferrier, Hogg, Macdonald, Stevenson, Barrie, Crockett, Alexander, George Douglas, and John Buchan. The tradition of narrative in standard English and dialogue in various degrees of dialect has been the usual procedure since. ~ David Murison

Toronto's likable, but it could be a lot more, as I think Montreal is, lovable. What we need more than anything, I think, is a great pedestrian promenade. Pick a busy streetscape, close it to cars forever, and it will fill with people enjoying nothing more than the pleasure of their own company. ~ Andy Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

No, no," Mr. Darling always said, "I am responsible for it all. I, George Darling, did it. MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA."
He had had a classical education. ~ J.M. Barrie

He looked at her uncomfortably; blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep. ~ J.M. Barrie

They will find the cake and they will gobble it up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to eat rich damp cake. ~ J.M. Barrie

Always be a little kinder than necessary. ~ J.M. Barrie

I've chosen Peter Pan by JM Barrie as my favourite children's book. ~ Tessa Jowell

Oh, the cleverness of me! ~ J.M. Barrie

I am aware that those hateful persons called Original Researchers now maintain that Raleigh was not the man; but to them I turn a deaf ear. ~ James M. Barrie

You [Scots] come of a race of men the very wind of whose name has swept to the ultimate seas. ~ James M. Barrie

A loving wife is better than making 50 in cricket, or even 99, beyond that I will not go. ~ James M. Barrie

The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on his dagger. ~ J.M. Barrie

Barrie wanted to fall into him, her lost to his found, her need to his want. Kissing was like the physical form of magic, all potential and the sense that anything might happen. When she was kissing Eight, she felt like she could fly. ~ Martina Boone

Times have changed since a certain author was executed for murdering his publisher. They say that when the author was on the scaffold he said good-bye to the minister and to the reporters, and then he saw some publishers sitting in the front row below, and to them he did not say good-bye. He said instead, "I'll see you again." ~ James M. Barrie

Facts were never pleasing to him. He acquired them with reluctance and got rid of them with relief. He was never on terms with them until he had stood them on their heads. ~ James M. Barrie

All you need is trust and a little bit of pixie dust! ~ James M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

For long I could not close my ears that night: I lay listening, I knew not what for. A scare was on me that made me dislike the dark, ~ J.M. Barrie

You see, dear, it is not true that woman was made from man's rib; she was made from his funny bone. ~ James M. Barrie

You see when a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests in the top of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form? ~ J.M. Barrie

Always try to be a litle kinder than necessary. ~ James M. Barrie

I like well to be in the company of explorers ~ James M. Barrie

Stars are beautiful, but they must not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. ~ J.M. Barrie

Wendy," Peter Pan continued in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to resist, "Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The birds were flown ~ J.M. Barrie

We were having another look among the bushes for David's lost worsted ball, and instead of the ball we found a lovely nest made of the worsted, and containing four eggs, with scratches on them very like David's handwriting, so we think they must have been the mother's love-letters to the little ones inside. ~ J.M. Barrie

The door', replied Maimie, 'will always, always be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me. ~ J.M. Barrie

Wendy," he continued, in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to resist, "Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys."
Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many inches, and she peeped out of the bed-clothes.
"Do you really think so, Peter?"
"Yes, I do. ~ J.M. Barrie

Them that has china plates themsel's is the maist careful not to break the china plates of others ~ James M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

What is genius? It is the power to be a boy again at will. ~ James M. Barrie

There is another system, more beaded than weather or murder, that is moving up into the province. As Les leaves the chair to investigate his son's crying a thousand zombies form an alliterative fog around Lake Scugog and beyond, mouthing the words Helen, hello, help. This fog predominates the region; however, other systems compete, bursting and winding with vowels braiding into dipthongs so long that they dissipate across a thousand panting lips. In the suburbs of Barrie, for instance, an alliteration that began with the wail of a cat in heat picked up the consonant "Guh" from a fisherman caught in surprise on Lake Simcoe. The echoing coves of the lake added a sort of meter, and by the time these sounds arrived in Gravenhurst, the people there were certain that a musical was blaring from speakers in the woods. All across the province, zombies, like extras in a crowd scene, imitate a thousand conversations. They open and close their mouths on things and sound is a heavy carpet of mumbling, a pre-production monstrosity. In minutes the Pontypool fog will march on the town of Sunderland and over the barriers south of Lindsay. ~ Tony Burgess

They hold their great balls in the open air, in what is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates. ~ James M. Barrie

Fame is rot; daughters are the thing. ~ James M. Barrie

She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.
Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land! ~ J.M. Barrie

Boy," she said courteously, "why are you crying? ~ J.M. Barrie

Forever is a very long time Peter ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

If it's meant to be, it will be. ~ J.M. Barrie

I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things. ~ J.M. Barrie

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 everytime you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them of vindictively as fast as possible. ~ J.M. Barrie

Good form without knowing it is the best form of all. ~ J.M. Barrie

I stand. "I'm not going to San Diego." I zap him with a don't-mess-with-me look. "I have plans for spring break, important plans, plans that were planned eons ago."

"Sherry-"

"You are not ruining my life. I "-and I jab my thumb into my chest- "can do that all on my own. ~ Barrie Summy

in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw. Let ~ J.M. Barrie

We are all of us failures, at least, the best of us are. ~ James M. Barrie