Top 100 Barrie's Quotes
#1. Back in the 1950s and '60s, J. M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan' - starring Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard - was regularly aired on network television during the Christmas season. I must have seen it four or five times and remember, in particular, Ritchard's gloriously camp interpretation of Captain Hook.
Michael Dirda
#2. 'The Admirable Crichton' is probably Barrie's most famous work after 'Peter Pan', nearly a pendant to that classic.
Michael Dirda
#3. Mrs. Darling's kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite easily. Funny.
J.M. Barrie
#5. Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover's privilege.
J.M. Barrie
#6. 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
#7. But before we get started, does anyone, uh, have any questions for me?" There's a long silence. Finally, Barrie raises his hand, and I hold my breath as I wait for his question. "Will Ryan Wesley come to one of our games?
Sarina Bowen
#8. If you knew how great is a mother's love, you would have no fear.
J.M. Barrie
#10. The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter's answer.
J.M. Barrie
#11. You find a glimmer of happiness in this world, there's always someone who wants to destroy it.
James M. Barrie
#12. Men's second childhood begins when a woman gets a hold of him.
James M. Barrie
#13. Toronto's likable, but it could be a lot more, as I think Montreal is, lovable. What we need more than anything, I think, is a great pedestrian promenade. Pick a busy streetscape, close it to cars forever, and it will fill with people enjoying nothing more than the pleasure of their own company.
Andy Barrie
#14. You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you. That's where I'll be waiting.
J.M. Barrie
#15. 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]
J.M. Barrie
#16. Pardon the plug, but what I like most about Toronto is Metro Morning's audience. I think it's got to be the most multi-faceted, multi-lingual, omni-curious collection of plugged-in people I've ever encountered.
Andy Barrie
#17. I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us.
J.M. Barrie
#18. Has it ever struck you that trout bite best on the Sabbath? God's critters tempting decent men.
James M. Barrie
#19. Them that has china plates themsel's is the maist careful not to break the china plates of others
James M. Barrie
#20. You just think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter explained, "and they lift you up in the air.
J.M. Barrie
#21. Peter: Oh, the cleverness of me. Wendy: Of course, I did nothing ... Peter: You did a little. Wendy: Oh, the cleverness of you.
James M. Barrie
#23. We are all failures- at least the best of us are.
J.M. Barrie
#24. 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
#25. The man who is in real danger is the man who thinks he is perfectly safe.
James M. Barrie
#26. You expected too much of me' I told him, and he bowed his head. 'I don't know where you brought your grand ideas of men and women from. I don't want to know' I added hastily. But I must have been a prettier word that this' I said: 'are you quite sure that you were wise in leaving it?
J.M. Barrie
#27. Peter spoke indignantly. "You don't think I would kill him while he was sleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That's the way I always do." "I say! Do you kill many?" "Tons!
J.M. Barrie
#28. The difficulty in the way of writing a children's play is that Barrie was born too soon. Many people must have felt the same about Shakespeare. We who came later have no chance. What fun to have been Adam, and to have had the whole world of plots and jokes and stories at one's disposal.
A.A. Milne
#29. When there's a smile in your heart, there's no better time to start
J.M. Barrie
#30. That fiend! Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.
J.M. Barrie
#31. Life and death, the child and the mother, are ever meeting as the one draws into harbour and the other sets sail. They exchange a bright "All's well" and pass on.
J.M. Barrie
#32. 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.
James M. Barrie
#33. What a polite game tennis is. The chief word in it seems to be "sorry" and admiration of each other's play crosses the net as frequently as the ball.
James M. Barrie
#34. You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring-cleaning time comes?
Of course Peter promised, and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite easily. Funny. But she seemd satisfied.
J.M. Barrie
#35. 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
#36. 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
#37. The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not--. There is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Peter's cockiness. This
J.M. Barrie
#38. It's easier to make something happen when you're already in motion.
Barrie Dolnick
#39. 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
#41. She asked where he lived.
Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.
J.M. Barrie
#42. A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in.
J.M. Barrie
#43. I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go.
J.M. Barrie
#44. It's a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don't need to have anything else; and if you don't have it, it doesn't much matter what else you have.
James M. Barrie
#45. It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.' 'Father's a cowardy custard.' 'So are you a cowardy custard.' 'I'm not frightened.' 'Neither am I frightened.' 'Well, then, take it.' 'Well, then, you take it.
J.M. Barrie
#46. 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
#47. How shall we ever know if it's morning if there's no servant to pull up the blinds?
James M. Barrie
#48. You must see for yourselves that it will be difficult to follow Peter Pan's adventures unless you are familiar with the Kensington Gardens.
J.M. Barrie
#49. Whenever a child says "I don't believe in fairies" there's a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead
J.M. Barrie
#50. 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.
J.M. Barrie
#51. Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancers who fall to the ground in a fit, and Solomon's Seals juice is for bruises. They bruise very easily
J.M. Barrie
#52. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze.
J.M. Barrie
#53. I can give you the power to fly to her house," the Queen said, "but I can't open the door for you.
J.M. Barrie
#54. I've chosen Peter Pan by JM Barrie as my favourite children's book.
Tessa Jowell
#55. When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies.
James M. Barrie
#57. I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not, it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life.
James M. Barrie
#58. Life is a cup of tea; the more heartily we drink the sooner we reach the dregs.
James M. Barrie
#60. Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.' 'What
J.M. Barrie
#61. She says she glories in being abandoned
J.M. Barrie
#62. There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.
J.M. Barrie
#63. On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
J.M. Barrie
#64. We keep waiting for that amazing thing to happen in the future that will be the key to our happiness. But this is it. Right now. Life continues to be a series of right nows. So learn to love right now, and you'll have an amazing life.
Barrie Davenport
#65. The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to hime make-believe and true were exactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had to make-believe that they had had their dinners.
J.M. Barrie
#66. For several days after my first book was published, I carried it about in my pocket and took surreptitious peeps at it to make sure the ink had not faded.
James M. Barrie
#67. Why, what is the matter, father dear?' 'Matter!' he yelled; he really yelled. 'This tie, it will not tie.
J.M. Barrie
#68. It is glorious fun racing down the Hump, but you can't do it on windy days because then you are not there, but the fallen leaves do it instead of you. There is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf.
J.M. Barrie
#69. I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things.
J.M. Barrie
#70. Don't forget to speak scornfully of the Victorian Age; there will be time for meekness when you try to better it. Very soon you will be Victorian or that sort of thing yourselves; next session probably, when the freshman come up.
J.M. Barrie
#72. Shall we make a new rule of life ... Always try to be a little kinder than us necessary? ['The little white bird' by JM Barrie]
R.J. Palacio
#73. In dinner talk it is perhaps allowable to fling any faggot rather than let the fire go out.
James M. Barrie
#75. The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon, when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for mortals
J.M. Barrie
#76. 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
#77. In love-making, as in other arts, those who do it best cannot tell how it is done.
James M. Barrie
#78. James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell. For we have come to his last moment.
J.M. Barrie
#79. 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.
J.M. Barrie
#80. The most useless are those who never change through the years.
James M. Barrie
#81. For, to a child, the oddest of things, and the most richly coloured picture-book, is that his mother was once a child also.
J.M. Barrie
#82. You see, dear, it is not true that woman was made from man's rib; she was made from his funny bone.
James M. Barrie
#83. A woman can be anything the man who loves her would have her be.
James M. Barrie
#84. Do you believe in fairies? ... If you believe, clap your hands!
J.M. Barrie
#85. Those who are prepared to die are most prepared to live.
James M. Barrie
#86. Even though you want to try to, never grow up
J.M. Barrie
#87. For when you looked into my mother's eyes you knew, as if He had told you, why God sent her into the world - it was to open then minds of all who looked to beautiful thoughts. And that is the beginning and end of literature.
J.M. Barrie
#88. Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?
J.M. Barrie
#89. Would you like an adventure now, or would like to have your tea first?
J.M. Barrie
#90. All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.
J.M. Barrie
#91. I was a huge J.M. Barrie fan as a kid, as most English children are.
Tim Curry
#92. 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
#93. There is a saying in the Neverland that,every time you breathe, a grown-up dies.
J.M. Barrie
#94. David tells me that fairies never say 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'.
J.M. Barrie
#95. Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life, The flag o' skull and bones, A merry hour, a hempen rope, And hey for Davy Jones.' At
J.M. Barrie
#96. I think it's perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls ...
James M. Barrie
#97. 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.
J.M. Barrie
#98. Somebody like me - I am a member of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change, we've been at this for several years now. To have somebody like the Prince of Wales talk about something [like climate changes] elevates that conversation to a much higher level.
Chris Barrie
#100. If you wish it.
Slightly: If you wish it?
Peter: IF YOU WISH IT.
J.M. Barrie
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