J. M. Barrie Quotes

142 Sourced Quotes

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.

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

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

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

J. M. Barrie
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.

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

J. M. Barrie
We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours.

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
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
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.

J. M. Barrie
Them that has china plates themsels is the maist careful no to break the china plates of others.

J. M. Barrie
Someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys.

J. M. Barrie
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.

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

J. M. Barrie
She said out of pity for him, "I shall give you a kiss if you like," but though he once knew, he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, "Thank you," and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss.

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

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
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.

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

J. M. Barrie
Our heroine knew that the mother would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so they stayed away for years and had a lovely time...

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
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.

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

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie