Top 254 Quotes & Sayings by James M. Barrie - Page 3

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."

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.

If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.

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

There are, I dare say, many lovers who would never have been drawn to each other had they met for the first time, as, say, they met the second time.

Wendy: Sir, you are both ungallant and deficient! Peter: How am I deficient? Wendy: You're just a boy.

If I were younger, I'd know more.

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

Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him.

Girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams

Oh, the cleverness of me!

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.

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.

After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy.

May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me.

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.

Love is not blind; it is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard.

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. 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.

The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let them.

Pan, who and what art thou?" he cried huskily. "I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.

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

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

Have you noticed that many jewels make women either incredibly fat or incredibly thin?

Fairies don’t live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them

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

Wise children always choose a mother who was a shocking flirt in her maiden days, and so had several offers before she accepted their fortunate papa.

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.

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

Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night.

You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.

The praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we are, the pride that shines in our mother's eyes as she looks at us is about the most pathetic thing a man has to face, but he would be a devil altogether if it did not burn some of the sin out of him.

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

I should like to say that I left off smoking because I considered it a mean form of slavery, to be condemned for moral as well as physical reasons; but though I see the folly of smoking clearly now, I was blind to it for some months after I had smoked my last pipe. I gave up my most delightful solace, as I regarded it, for no other reason than that the lady who was willing to fling herself away on me said that I must choose between it and her.

In dinner talk it is perhaps allowable to fling any faggot rather than let the fire go out.

Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be written in ink but in a golden splash.

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

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

Forever is a very long time Peter

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.

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

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

I think one remains the same person throughout, merely passing, as it were, i these lapses of time from one room to another, but all in the same house.

Second to the right, and straight on till morning.' That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head.

Never is an awfully long time.

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.

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

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

Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?

I've sometimes thought . . . that the difference between us and the English is that the Scotch are hard in all other respects but soft with women, and the English are hard with women but soft in all other respects.

One girl is worth more use than 20 boys.

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

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.

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

Peter invented, with Wendy's help, a new game that fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in it, which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games. It consisted in pretending not to have adventures.

You were hidden behind walls of ice; no man had passed them; I broke them down and love leapt to love, and you lie here, my beautiful, love in the arms of its lover.

They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can't.

He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.

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.