63 Inspiring Peter Pan Quotes

In the heart of every adult lies a child yearning for adventure, whimsy, and the magical tales of Neverland. J.M. Barrie's timeless creation, Peter Pan, embodies the spirit of eternal youth and the joy of boundless imagination. The enchanting world of Peter Pan offers more than just a whimsical escape; it imparts wisdom on courage, innocence, and the beauty of holding onto one's dreams. In this collection, we explore 63 inspiring quotes that capture the very essence of Peter Pan's adventures and the life lessons nestled within. Whether you are seeking a sprinkle of fairy dust to lift your spirits or a gentle reminder of the magic that exists beyond the ordinary, these quotes promise to inspire and delight.

1. “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

2. “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

3. “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.” - J.M. Barrie

4. “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!” - J.M. Barrie

5. “I am the best there ever was!” - J.M. Barrie

6. “NEVERLAND:The imaginary island home of Peter Pan and the lost boys. A place where you never grow up. Michael Jackson’s former retreat. An accurate description of the 21st century.” - Daniel Prokop

7. “The fast fliers are not disgraced." Queen Ree reached up for the missing tiara. "She saved us, but she's with him now."Vidia was complicated, two fairies in one, a loyal traitor.” - Gail Carson Levine

8. “And Peter laughed, and when he did, all the Devils grinned, because Peter's laugh was a most contagious thing.” - Brom

9. “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

10. “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

11. “There are some people that see the half full cup and get upset about where the other half of the cup went... With an attitude like that, they will never be happy. I see a half full cup and I immediately take half of someone else’s cup and then I have a full cup and I’m happy. With the right attitude, life is really very simple." Peter Pan from 'Leaving Neverland' (Why Little Boys Shouldn't Run Big Corporations)” - Daniel Prokop

12. “When two or three people come together in the name of Neverland then I will be there amidst them or if I am too busy or have a better offer, then I will send a proxy or you can just have the tantrum without me, whatever.” (King James Version: Gospel of St. Peter (of Pan)Verse: Blah Paragraph: Blah, blah” - Daniel Prokop

13. “For Peter's smile is a most contagious thing.” - Brom

14. “My name's Peter. Can I play too?” - Brom

15. “Shoot the Wendybird!” - J.M. Barrie

16. “[Peter Pan] has never broken his terrible habit of eavesdropping. So, maybe that wasn't the rustle of pages you heard while this story lasted, but Peter Pan himself, listening in. In exchanged for a story of yours, he might show you his most prized possession: James Hooks' map of Neverland.In exchange for a smile, he may show you Neverland itself.” - Geraldine McCaughrean

17. “Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter.” - J.M. Barrie

18. “One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.” - J.M. Barrie

19. “But where do you live mostly now?"With the lost boys."Who are they?"They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expanses. I'm captain."What fun it must be!"Yes," said cunning Peter, "but we are rather lonely. You see we have no female companionship."Are none of the others girls?"Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.” - J.M. Barrie

20. “Of all the delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real. That is why there are night-lights. ” - J.M. Barrie

21. “Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse.” - J.M. Barrie

22. “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

23. “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

24. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” - J. M. Barrie

25. “He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up.” - J.M. Barrie

26. “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

27. “I know,” said Peter. “Perhaps better than anyone. But you can’t stay a child forever. To choose to speak into Echo’s Well is to choose illusion. To choose to avoid the responsibilities of being an adult. The real trick—the real choice—is to keep the best of the child you were, without forgetting when you grow up.“It is the best of both worlds, Jack. Being a child is to believe in magic everywhere…“…but even Peter Pan had to grow up one day.” - James A. Owen

28. “David tells me that fairies never say 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'.” - J.M. Barrie

29. “The door', replied Maimie, 'will always, always be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me.” - J.M. Barrie

30. “I think we could be friends," he said, falling into step with her. "It's perfect because I wouldn't fall in love with you, like I do with the mermaids. Girls always seem so exotic. But it would be okay with you, because you're more like...you know. Not like a girl." He shrugged.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

31. “For the next couple of weeks she held Peter like a secret in her heart, lying right under her necklace. I could see him written on her face, and Tik Tok, too, seemed to catch shadows of him, because he'd stop to stare at her, puzzled, as if he'd just seen the boy flit across her eyes-seen the ghost of the kiss lingering for a second on the skin of her neck before disappearing.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

32. “You may think my jealousy would have been enormous during those days after Peter gave Tiger Lily the smallest kiss on the neck. And you would be right. But these moments were swallowed by a bigger emotion, my tenderness for Tiger Lily, which had grown to take up most of the space in my body, without me knowing it. I can't say I didn't dream that this was a passing moment of infatuation, and that eventually Peter would notice and pick me-as impossible as that might have seemed considering my size. But I felt protective of Tiger Lily. I felt that just by watching over her, I could somehow keep her safe. And I wanted to keep Peter safe too.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

33. “It's the injustice that I hate, more than anything," he'd said to Smee one night, his eyes red and glassy, slurring his words, his head lolling as he tried to focus. He'd vomited, and then promptly passed out on a bush. "I hate the world that does not work out fair.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

34. “He tousled Baby's hair, then looked up at Tiger Lily. "The woods have rules." He put Baby down gingerly in his trough with his bottle. "But the rules are ugly.""It's nature," she said, thoughtfully."I have a lot of disagreements with nature," he said, looking confused, and his downy brow wrinkled over his eyes.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

35. “I'll teach you," Tiger Lily offered with a shrug of her shoulders."Did your mother teach you?" he asked."I don't have a mother," she said. "Like you."For some reason, Peter was glad to hear it.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

36. “Tiger Lily made an attempt at a smile. After having felt the need to glower at other children for most of her life, smiles never came easily to her face. But this one was half all right."I miss you already," he said.Tiger Lily wanted to say it back. But she held on to the words greedily, too caught in the habit of keeping herself a secret. And Peter-half sadly, half-expectantly-let her go.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

37. “Sometimes Peter treated her like she was the only thing in the forest. Sometimes he was so distracted by the things around him that she had to keep up or be left behind. But a lot of times, she knew he did it on purpose, and she didn't have to know why. He seemed to have reasons for doing things even he didn't understand.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

38. “It was like this sometimes, and I felt I should look away, but I couldn't. I wanted to be there, having my face touched, defeating a heart like Peter's, but the next best thing was seeing it for Tiger Lily.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

39. “And always, I could see that, despite his weakness for her or because of it, he seemed uncatchable, as if he might slip away at any moment.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

40. “An unspoken rivalry threaded their relationship, in which Tiger Lily thought that if she could keep up with him, she could hold tighter to him. It didn't occur to her there was anything in which Peter would want her to fail. But sometimes, I could see that, even for him, she was too fast, too sure-footed, and didn't seem to need him quite enough.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

41. “Peter sighed into the water, and his breath sent a small circle of it into tiny ripples. "It seems cowardly, getting old. Don't you think?" She rolled onto her side to look at him, pillowing her ear with her right arm, and letting her fingers dangle in the water beyond her head. "How is it cowardly?"Peter kept his eyes on his reflection. "You just curl up around yourself, and sit by the fire, and try to be comfortable. When you get old, you just get smaller inside, and you try not to pay attention to anything but your blankets and your food and your bed.""Being comfortable is not a bad thing."Peter shrugged and turned his head to look at her as if it was a matter of fact. "Of course it is. Old people lock out all the scary, wild things. It's like they don't exist." She wanted to say that she would have liked for those things not to exist, either, but she held her tongue, because she didn't want to sound like a coward.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

42. “To not do what you can to protect someone, that's cowardly.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

43. “I began to see that Wendy had something Tiger Lily hadn't even known she was supposed to have. Of all the things Tiger Lily had thought she might have to be for Peter-strong, brave; to be big and to keep up-she had never thought that the one thing he wanted most from her was simply to show that she believed in him, always and without fail.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

44. “There was no twinkle in his eyes. "Maybe I just love some of you. Maybe not enough."Tiger Lily blinked at him, and she didn't understand how anyone could only love a part. Her greedy heart didn't work that way.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

45. “Look," Peter said.To the north was a series of vast grassy plains, and there, just looking like specks at first, was a herd of horses, a species that in Neverland had never been tamed. They were beautiful, flashes of brown and black and tan, their coats gleaming. There was no reason for them to be running that Tiger Lily could see. It was likely that they just loved to run."That's what I want my life to be," Peter said, staring down at the horses.Tiger Lily sank against him and watched the herd, and thought that was what she wanted too.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

46. “I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

47. “You are too late," he cried proudly, "I have shot the Wendy. Peter will be so pleased with me."Overhead Tinker Bell shouted "Silly ass!" and darted into hiding.” - J.M. Barrie

48. “Again came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them. "Greeting, boys," he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then again was silence.He frowned."I am back," he said hotly, "why do you not cheer?” - J.M. Barrie

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

50. “Death has come to cut your throats and drink your blood!” - Brom

51. “I wonder if your mother was frightened by Peter Pan before you were born?” - Charlotte Lamb

52. “It took several minutes, but he was meticulous about each letter. IN MEMRY OF THE STRANJER, it said. HE LIVD AND DID.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

53. “Why does this faerie follow you everywhere?" he asked. "Do you think she's plotting to murder you in your sleep?" he teased. My wings and the tips of my feet tingled with anger. But then he reached a finger toward me gently, and the anger melted. "Let's name her Tinker Bell," he said, like I was their child. He swooped his hand underneath me. "Hi, little Tink." Hearing him say it thrilled me-a name Peter had invented, just for me.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

54. “How can I describe Peter's face, the pieces of him that stick to my heart? Peter sometimes looked aloof and distant; sometimes his face was open and soft as a bruise. Sometimes he looked completely at Tiger Lily, as if she were the point on which all the universe revolved, as if she were the biggest mystery of life, or as if she were a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared. And sometimes it would all disappear into carelessness, confidence, amusement, as if he didn't need anyone or anything on this earth to feel happy and alive.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

55. “I'm not going to let anyone Wendy me." "Wendy you? What the hell does that mean?"Talbot asked."Wendy, from Peter Pan! Peter and the lost boys set to go off fighting pirates while Wendy has to stay back and clean their stupid tree house. We'll, I'm not doing it. I'm fighting for my baby brother and that's final.” - Bree Despain

56. “She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

57. “Wendy, ein Mädchen ist mehr wert als zwanzig Jungen.” - James M. Barrie

58. “Everyone will think I'm ugly."Tik Tok smiled. "That's true. But we are a small village. We have narrow tastes. There's no telling who else in the world would think you're beautiful.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

59. “We built that Wendy House our own selves, for Wendy! And you can't keep a Wendy out of her own Wendy House!” - Geraldine McCaughrean

60. “Tell me a story,' demanded Fireflyer.'Why? Do you eat them, too, then?''Only the ohs and ayes and ees and oos. The Kays are too spikey and the zeds are too buzzzy and the ones with the dots get stuck in your teeth and the esses sometimes slide down inside your vest and tickle.” - Geraldine McCaughrean

61. “Not everyone can be rich,' Peter went on. 'Not everyone can be strong or clever. Not everyone can be beautiful. But we can ALL be brave! If we tell ourselves we can do it; if we say to our hearts, 'don't jump about'; if we carry ourselves like heroes... we can all be brave! We can all look Danger in the face and be glad to meet it, and draw our swords and say, 'Have at you, Danger! You don't scare me!' Courage is just there for the taking; you don't need money to buy it. You don't need to go to school to learn it! Courage is the thing, isn't it? Don't you think so, people? Aren't I right? Courage is the thing! All goes if courage goes!” - Geraldine McCaughrean

62. “Girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams” - J.M. Barrie

63. “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