James M. Barrie Quotations

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

We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it.

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

A woman can be anything the man who loves her would have her be.

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.

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.

Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands!

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.

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

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.

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

Temper is a weapon that we hold by the blade.

There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.

The praise that comes from love does not make us vain, but more humble.

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

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

His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants' hall.

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

The best place a person can die, is where they die for others.

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.

Everytime a child says 'I don't believe in fairies' there is a a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

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

It's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have. Some women, the few, have charm for all; and most have charm for one. But some have charm for none.

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

It is not real work unless you would rather be doing something else.

Every man who is high up likes to think that he has done it all himself, and the wife smiles and lets it go at that.

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

Ambition it is the last infirmity of noble minds.

Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.

Every time a child says I don't believe in fairies there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular you don't find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more interesting.

The most useless are those who never change through the years.

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.

I am not young enough to know everything.

Let no one who loves be called unhappy Even love unreturned has its rainbow.

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.

Every time a child says, ''I don't believe in fairies,'' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.

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.

Never is an awfully long time.

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

Oh, the cleverness of me!

I am the best there ever was!

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!

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.

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.

They have long lost count of the days, but always if they want to do anything special they say this is saturday night, and then they do it.

Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the old one simply would not meet, but he never came. "Perhaps he is ill," Michael said. "You know he is never ill." Michael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver, "Perhaps there is no such person, Wendy!" and then Wendy would have cried if Michael had not been crying.

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

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.

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

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.

It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent.

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

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.

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.

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

Men's second childhood begins when a woman gets a hold of him.

Fame is rot; daughters are the thing.

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

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.

Mrs. Darling: 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. Michael: Where did he put them? Mrs. Darling: 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.

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

Girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams

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.

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.

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.

All children, except one, grow up.

For when you looked into my mother's eyes you knew, as if He had told you, why God sent her into the world - it was to open then minds of all who looked to beautiful thoughts. And that is the beginning and end of literature.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Boy, why are you crying?

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.

..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.

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.

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.

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."

Forget not your past, for in the future it may help you grow

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

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

Anything is possible if you wish hard enough.

I do loathe explanations.

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.

All great writers begin with a good leather binding and a respectable title.

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.

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

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.

May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me.