J.m. Barrie Quotes

To die will be an awfully big adventure.

~ J.m. Barrie

You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.

~ J.m. Barrie

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.

~ J.m. Barrie

Life is a long lesson in humility.

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.

~ J.m. Barrie

I'm not young enough to know everything.

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her, he said, ‘Who is Tinker Bell?’ ‘O Peter,’ she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not remember. ‘There are such a lot of them,’ he said. ‘I expect she is no more.’ I expect he was right, for fairies don’t live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them.

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

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

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

I can't come,' she said apologetically, 'I have forgotten how to fly.''I'll soon teach you again.''O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me.

~ J.m. Barrie

...and as she was crossing to the day-nursery he added thoughtlessly, 'And shut that window. I feel a draught.' 'O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open for them, always, always.

~ J.m. Barrie

He peeped in again to see why the music had stopped, and now he saw that Mrs. Darling had laid her head on the box, and that two tears were sitting on her eyes.'She wants me to unbar the window,' thought Peter, 'but I won't, not I!'He peeped again, and the tears were still there, or another two had taken their place.'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.

~ J.m. Barrie

Ambition: it is the last infirmity of noble minds.

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

~ J.m. Barrie

He was a poet, and they are never exactly grown-up.

~ J.m. Barrie

He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also.

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

Don't forget to speak scornfully of the Victorian Age; there will be time for meekness when you try to better it. Very soon you will be Victorian or that sort of thing yourselves; next session probably, when the freshman come up.

~ J.m. Barrie

It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did it.

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

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.

~ J.m. Barrie

Girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams

~ J.m. Barrie

Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling rapidity; ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got past his foe's defense, but his shorter reach stood him in ill stead, and he could not drive the steel home

~ J.m. Barrie

It is humiliating to have to confess that this conceit of Peter was one of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness, there never was a cockier boy.

~ J.m. Barrie

Good form without knowing it is the best form of all.

~ J.m. Barrie

All her tormentings of me turned suddenly into sweetnesses, and who could torment like this exquisite fury, wondering in sudden flame why she could give herself to anyone, while I wondered only why she could give herself to me. It may be that I wondered over-much. Perhaps that was why I lost her.

~ J.m. Barrie