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.”

“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 will never afterwards be the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.”

“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.”

“I think one remains the same person throughout, merely passing, as it were, i these lapses of time from one room to another, but all in the same house.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Peter,' she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are your exact feelings for me?'Those of a devoted son, Wendy.'I thought so,' she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end of the room.You are so queer,' he said, frankly puzzled, 'and Tiger Lily is just the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.'No, indeed, it is not,' Wendy replied with frightful emphasis.”

“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...”

“Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder.”

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

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

“I don’t know if you have ever seem a map of a person’s mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.”

“I'm not young enough to know everything.”

“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.”

“Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes."[The Rectorial Address Delivered by James M. Barrie at St. Andrew's University May 3, 1922, to the Red Gowns of St. Andrews, Canada, 1922]”

“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.”

“People who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.”

“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”

“They took it for granted that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus children are ever so ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones.”

“There is a saying in the Neverland that,every time you breathe, a grown-up dies.”

“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.”

“Second to the right, and straight on till morning."That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland”

“Why can't you fly now, mother?""Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the way.""Why do they forget the way?""Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.”

“I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!”

“It is very well to be able to write a book, but can you waggle your ears?”

“- Porque é que já não sabe voar, mãe?-Porque já sou crescida, meu amor. Quando as pessoas crescem esquecem-se de como se faz.- Porque é que se esquecem?- Porque já não são alegres, inocentes e cruéis. Só quem for alegre, inocente e cruel é que consegue voar.”

“All the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it is scarcely worth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag and an umbrella. Michael is an engine driver. Slightly married a lady of title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man who doesn't know any story to tell his children was once John.”

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

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

“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. ”

“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.”

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

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

“Stars are beautiful, but they must not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was.”

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

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

“To live will be an awfully big adventure.”

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

“Life is a long lesson in humility.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”