James M. Barrie Quotes

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

The useless men are those who never change with the years.

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.

Always try to be a litle kinder than necessary.

asleep to rummage in their minds

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.

It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent.

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

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?

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.

The fairies, as their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they were so madly in love with the little house that they could not bear to think they had finished it.

Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened.

The gates of heaven are so easily found when we are little, and they are always standing open to let children wander in.

You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

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.

There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.

astonishing splashes of colour

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?

It is very well to be able to write a book, but can you waggle your ears?

Just always be waiting for me.

Every man who is high up likes to think he has done it all himself; and the wife smiles, and lets it go at that. It's our only joke. Every woman knows that.

The man of science appears to be the only man who has something to say just now, and the only man who does not know how to say it.

There are many different kinds of bravery. There's the bravery of thinking of others before one's self. Now, your father has never brandished a sword nor fired a pistol, thank heavens. But he has made many sacrifices for his family, and put away many dreams... He put them in a drawer. And sometimes, late at night, we take them out and admire them. But it gets harder and harder to close the drawer... He does. And that is why he is brave.

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

May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me.

Temper is a weapon that we hold by the blade.

I think it's perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls.

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

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

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

I wasn't crying about mothers," he said rather indignantly. "I was crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't crying.

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

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

Forget them, Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again.

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.

Peter: Oh, the cleverness of me. Wendy: Of course, I did nothing... Peter: You did a little. Wendy: Oh, the cleverness of you.

Every living thing was shunning him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.

Life is a long lesson in humility.

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!

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.

Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.

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.

She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

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.

..children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in fairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

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

I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not, it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life.

The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to hime make-believe and true were exactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had to make-believe that they had had their dinners.