J. M. Barrie Quotes

142 Sourced Quotes

She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it. Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.

J. M. Barrie
She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.

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

J. M. Barrie
Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.
"Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.

J. M. Barrie
Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened.

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

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

J. M. Barrie
The man is not wholly evil: he has a Thesaurus in his cabin.
Of Captain Hook

J. M. Barrie
To the British writer H.G. Wells:
It is all very well to be able to write books, but can you wag your ears?

J. M. Barrie
The tragedy of a man who has found himself out.

J. M. Barrie
"I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long ago."
"You promised not to!"
"I couldn't help it. I am a married woman, Peter."

J. M. Barrie
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...

J. M. Barrie
On a certain author who was tried for murdering his publisher:
When the author was on the scaffold he said goodbye 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 goodbye. He said instead, 'I'll see you later.'

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

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

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

J. M. Barrie
Hogmanay, like all festivals, being but a bank from which we can only draw what we put in.

J. M. Barrie
Sometimes the little boy who calls me father brings me an invitation from his mother: "I shall be so pleased if you will come and see me," and I always reply in some such words as these: "Dear madam, I decline." And if David asks why I decline, I explain that it is because I have no desire to meet the woman.
"Come this time, father," he urged lately, "for it is her birthday, and she is twenty-six," which is so great an age to David, that I think he fears she cannot last much longer.

J. M. Barrie
One's religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success.

J. M. Barrie
It's grand, and you canna expect to be baith grand and comfortable.

J. M. Barrie