J. M. Barrie - Peter Pan

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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
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
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
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
"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
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
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.

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

J. M. Barrie
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
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.

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
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...

J. M. Barrie
Some day,' said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get you.' Hook wetted his dry lips, 'Aye,' he said, 'that's the fear that haunts me.

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
Take care, lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe.

J. M. Barrie
It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if they did not admire him.

J. M. Barrie
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.

J. M. Barrie
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingos flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents...

J. M. Barrie