J M 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, the cleverness of me! ~ J.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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sir, you are both ungallant and deficient!
How am I deficient?
You're just a boy. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

Never is an awfully long time. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

Death.
One who died is only a little ahead of procession all moving that way. When we round the corner we'll see him again. We have only lost him for a moment because we fell behind, stopping to tie a shoelace. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

Two small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had fainted and lay on the the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter pulled her up the rock and then lay down beside her. Even as he also fainted he saw that the water was raising, He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he could do no more.
As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began pulling her softly into the water. Peter feeling her slip from him, woke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to tell her the truth.
"We are on the rock, Wendy," he said, "but it is growing smaller. Soon the water will be over it."
She did not understand even now.
"We must go," she said, almost brightly.
"Yes," he answered faintly.
"Shall we swim or fly, Peter?"
He had to tell her.
"Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without my help?"
She had to admit she was too tired.
He moaned.
"What is it?" she asked, anxious about him at once.
"I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim."
"Do you mean we shall both be downed?"
"Look how the water is raising."
They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if to say timidly, "Can I be of any us?" It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It had torn i ~ J.M. Barrie

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! ~ J.M. Barrie

If you wish it.
Slightly: If you wish it?
Peter: IF YOU WISH IT. ~ J.M. Barrie

There never was a simpler, happier family until the coming of Peter Pan. ~ J.M. Barrie

Do you know," Peter asked, "why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories. ~ J.M. Barrie

She asked where he lived.
Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning. ~ J.M. Barrie

One girl is worth more than twenty boys. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

Boy, why are you crying? ~ J.M. Barrie

Long ago," he said, "I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me; so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed."
I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it scared them.
"Are you sure mothers are like that?"
"Yes."
So this was the truth about mothers. The toads! ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie

David tells me that fairies never say 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'. ~ J.M. Barrie

If you have it [love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have. ~ J.M. Barrie

The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter's answer. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

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

astonishing splashes of colour ~ J.M. Barrie

See," he said, "the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave her. It has saved her life. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

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

Twin, I think you should not have dreamt that, for I didn't, and Peter may say we oughtn't to dream differently, being twins, you know. ~ J.M. Barrie

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

Why, what is the matter, father dear?' 'Matter!' he yelled; he really yelled. 'This tie, it will not tie. ~ J.M. Barrie

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. ~ J.M. Barrie