James M. Barrie Quotes

Let no one who loves be unhappy, even love unreturned has its rainbow.

He who distributes the milk of human kindness cannot help but spill a little on himself.

Every time you say you don't believe in fairies, a fairy dies.

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God. Not in doing what you like but in liking what you do is the secret of happiness.

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.

He was never more sinister than when he was most polite.

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."

I like well to be in the company of explorers

What a polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be "sorry" and admiration of each other's play crosses the net as frequently as the ball.

All children, except one, grow up.

She's awfully fond of Wendy,' he said to himself. He was angry with her now for not seeing why she could not have Wendy. The reason was so simple: 'I'm fond of her too. We can't both have her, lady.

Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, "To die will be an awfully big adventure.

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.

Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.

Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover's privilege.

Yet if he upbraided her in his hurry, it was to repent bitterly his temper the next, and to feel its effects more than she, temper being a weapon that we hold by the blade.

I am the best there ever was!

i know i'm not clever but i'm always right.

Heaven for climate, Hell for company.

Always be kinder than necessary.

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.

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

I know, I feel, that with the introduction of tobacco England woke up from a long sleep. Suddenly a new zest had been given to life. The glory of existence became a thing to speak of. Men who had hitherto only concerned themselves with the narrow things of home put a pipe into their mouths and became philosophers.

Some of my plays peter out and some pan out.

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.

What is algebra exactly; is it those three-cornered things?

Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them.

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.

This meal happened to be a make-believe tea, and they sat round the board guzzling in their greed; and really, what with their chatter and recriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening.

If I were younger, I'd know more.

Oh, the cleverness of me!

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

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

Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter.

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.

How shall we ever know if it's morning if there's no servant to pull up the blinds?

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

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

All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the danger may be creeping up from behind.

...it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings of England.

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

Never is an awfully long time.

For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded.

Courage: The lovely virtue-the rib of Himself that God sent down to His children.

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.

As soon as you can say what you think and not what some other person has thought for you, you are on the way to being a remarkable man.

Why can't you fly now, mother?" "Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the way." "Why do they forget the way?" "Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.