Top 254 Quotes & Sayings by James M. Barrie - Page 4

If 'Hamlet' had been written in these days it would probably have been called 'The Strange Affair at Elsinore.

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.

It was then that Hook bit him. Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Fame is rot; daughters are the thing.

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

Don't have a mother,' he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very over-rated persons.

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

Nobody really wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of them will hurt.

Oh the gladness of their gladness when they're glad, And the sadness of their sadness when they're sad; But the gladness of their gladness, and the sadness of their sadness, Are as nothing to their badness when they're bad

You find a glimmer of happiness in this world, there's always someone who wants to destroy it.

Some of my plays peter out and some pan out.

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

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 Elizabethan age might be better named the beginning of the smoking era.

A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night.

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

When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she really came, I shot her.

Two is the beginning of the end.

You canna expect to be baith grand and comfortable.

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

Heaven for climate, Hell for company.

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.

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.

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.

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

I do believe in fairies, I do, I do.

That is ever the way. Tis all jealousy to the bride and good wishes to the corpse.

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.

One's religion is whatever he is most interested in.

All the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it is scarcely worth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag and an umbrella. Michael is an engine driver. Slightly married a lady of title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man who doesn't know any story to tell his children was once John.

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?

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.

Your heart is as fresh as your face; and that is well. The useless men are those who never change with the years. Many views that I held to in my youth and long afterwards are a pain to me now, and I am carrying away from Thrums memories of errors into which I fell at every stage of my ministry. When you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in humility.

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.

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

I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching.

And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her still.

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.

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.

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

Because 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 on the tops 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.

In time they could not even fly after their hats. Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they no longer believed.

For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face. "So, Pan," said Hook at last, "this is all your doing." "Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing." "Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom." "Dark and sinister man,“For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face. "Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee.

Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older.

If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water.

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.

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.

?"She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet smiles.

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.

I sometimes think, Mary, that it is a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.

Boy, why are you crying?

Has it ever struck you that trout bite best on the Sabbath? God's critters tempting decent men.

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.

All children, except one, grow up.

Them that has china plates themsel's is the maist careful not to break the china plates of others

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