Here are the 177 best handpicked quotes from “Peter Pan” by James Barrie:
From “’What if I fall?’ ‘Oh but my darling what if you fly?’” to “I’m fond of her, too. We can’t both have her, lady!”
So if you want the best quotes from “Peter Pan,” then you’re in the right place.
Let’s jump right in!
My Favorite “Peter Pan” Quote
#1
“What if I fall?
‘Oh but my darling what if you fly?’”
― Peter Pan, the play
The first two words of this quote are the main reason why I chose this as my favorite quote for this collection.
‘What’ and ‘If’ are just two simple words but put them together and they have the power to have you look back on some of the most crucial decisions made in the past.
This quote hits home because it taught me again that amazing and magical things are just on the other side of my fear of taking risks or a leap of faith.
As they say, no risk, no reward.
Quotes From the Play “Peter Pan” by James Barrie
#2
“Just always be waiting for me.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#3
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#4
“Would you like an adventure now, or would like to have your tea first?”
― Peter Pan, the play
#5
“All children, except one, grow up.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#6
“Stars are beautiful, but they may not take part in anything, they must just look on forever.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#7
“If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#8
“Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#9
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#10
“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#11
“I’ve been dreaming.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#12
“Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#13
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#14
“She is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots and kettles.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#15
“…there was a commotion in the firmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed out: “Now, Peter!”
― Peter Pan, the play
#16
“She did not yet know that Tink hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#17
“They will find the cake and they will gobble it up, because, having no mother, they don’t know how dangerous ’tis to eat rich damp cake.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#18
“You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,” Peter explained, “and they lift you up in the air.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#19
“I’ll hold you in my heart, until I can hold you in my arms.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#20
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#21
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#22
“He looked at her uncomfortably; blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#23
“When people grow up they forget the way.’
‘Why do they forget the way?’
‘Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#24
“It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#25
“However, as we are here we may as well stay and look on. That is all we are, lookers-on. Nobody really wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of them will hurt.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#26
“Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbors; 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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#27
“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 woods they had met their dead father and had a game with him.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#28
“To live will be an awfully big adventure.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#29
“If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colors suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colors become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#30
“When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, ‘Pretty mother, pretty mother.’ But when at last she really came, I shot her.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#31
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#32
“Wendy,” Peter Pan continued in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to resist, “Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#33
“Never is an awfully long time.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#34
“Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#35
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#36
“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#37
“Even though you want to try to, never grow up.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#38
“He was so much the humblest one that Wendy was especially gentle with him.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#39
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#40
“As you look at Wendy you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring-cleaning time, except when he forgets,Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter’s mother in turn; and so it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#41
“No matter how hard we try to be mature, we will always be a kid when we all get hurt and cry.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#42
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#43
“He was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in Neverland, that everytime you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them vindictively as fast as possible.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#44
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#45
“Forever is a very long time Peter.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#46
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#47
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#48
“I don’t want to go to school and learn solemn things.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#49
“And thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#50
“Sir, you are both ungallant and deficient!
How am I deficient?
You’re just a boy.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#51
“Boy, why are you crying?”
― Peter Pan, the play
#52
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#53
“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!”
― Peter Pan, the play
#54
“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 Pan, the play
#55
“All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#56
“For a long time the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with a strange smile upon his face.
“So, Pan,” said Hook at last, “this is all your doing.”
“Ay, James Hook,” came the stern answer, “it is all my doing.”
“Proud and insolent youth,” said Hook, “prepare to meet thy doom.”
“Dark and sinister man,” Peter answered, “have at thee.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#57
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#58
“You are just a boy!”
― Peter Pan, the play
#59
“Wait for me somewhere between reality and all we’ve ever dreamed.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#60
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#61
“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 delighted, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!’ 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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#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 forever barred.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#63
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#64
“I suppose it’s like the ticking crocodile, isn’t it? Time is chasing after all of us.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#65
“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!”
― Peter Pan, the play
#66
“Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish, cold, and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a hatchet.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#67
“Peter measures you for your tree as carefully as for a suit of clothes: the only difference being that the clothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#68
“Whenever a child says “I don’t believe in fairies” there’s a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#69
“Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her. “Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#70
“Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had forgotten them all.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#71
“His eyes were the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the great seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told he was a raconteur of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding…”
― Peter Pan, the play
#72
“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 postiviely deafening.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#73
“Don’t you understand Tink? You mean more to me than anything in this whole world!”
― Peter Pan, the play
#74
“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…”
― Peter Pan, the play
#75
“A moment after the fairy’s entrance the window was blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#76
“Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children’s minds. It is the nightly 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. It’s 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 picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek, as if it were a nice kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness 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 the prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#77
“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…”
― Peter Pan, the play
#78
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#79
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#80
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#81
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#82
“Fairies don’t live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#83
“I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind’s back, and then away we go.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#84
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#85
“One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#86
“I don’t know if you have ever seen 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 confusing, 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 color 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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#87
“In time they could not even fly after their hats. Wanting practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they no longer believed.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#88
“Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#89
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#90
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#91
“Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#92
“She asked where he lived.
Second to the right,’ said Peter, ‘and then straight on till morning.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#93
“Forget them Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you’ll never, never have to worry about grown up things again.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#94
“Of course Neverland had been make-believe in those days; but it was real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker every moment, and where was Nana?”
― Peter Pan, the play
#95
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#96
“When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness 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 your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#97
“Asleep to rummage in their minds.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#98
“To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#99
“It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for the next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#100
“I think it’s perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls…”
― Peter Pan, the play
#101
“The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to him, 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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#102
“He was thrilled, and he loved being thrilled.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#103
“They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#104
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#105
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#106
“Will they reach the nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them, and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story. On the other hand, if they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it will all come right in the end.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#107
“And if he forgets them so quickly,” Wendy argued, “how can we expect that he will go on remembering us?”
― Peter Pan, the play
#108
“Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be written in ink but in a golden splash.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#109
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#110
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#111
“Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#112
“There are many different kinds of bravery. There’s the bravery of thinking of others before one’s self. Now, your father has never brandished a sword nor fired a pistol, thank heavens. But he has made many sacrifices for his family, and put away many dreams.
Michael: Where did he put them?
Mrs. Darling: He put them in a drawer. And sometimes, late at night, we take them out and admire them. But it gets harder and harder to close the drawer… He does. And that is why he is brave.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#113
“You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,” Peter explained, “and they lift you up in the air.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#114
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#115
“Do you know,” Peter asked, “why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#116
“There is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#117
“It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#118
“There never was a simpler, happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#119
“I can’t come,’ she said apologetically, ‘I have forgotten how to fly.’
‘I’ll soon teach you again.’
‘O Peter, don’t waste the fairy dust on me.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#120
“He swore this terrible oath: “Hook or me this time.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#121
“We can fly!”
― Peter Pan, the play
#122
“So with occasional tiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they drew near the Neverland; for after many moons they did reach it, and, what is more, they had been going pretty straight all the time, not perhaps so much owing to the guidance of Peter or Tink as because the sland was out looking for them. It is only thus that anyone may sight those magic shores.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#123
“Come with me where dreams are born and time is never planned.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#124
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#125
“He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#126
“There is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#127
“But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in Neverland that every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them vindictively as fast as possible.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#128
“You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#129
“You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#130
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder… or forgetful.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#131
“One cannot at least withhold a reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme, and the fell genius with which it was carried out.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#132
“Good form without knowing it is the best form of all.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#133
“At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#134
“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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#135
“None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance gave them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on the island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They sang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows, little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may never meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy’s good-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled not only the others but himself, and he said happily:”
― Peter Pan, the play
#136
“All remember about my mother,” Nibs told them, “is that she often said to my father, ‘Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own!’ I don’t know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my mother one.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#137
“The man was wholly evil; he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord);and let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of the scene stirred him profoundly.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#138
“Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#139
“When there’s a smile in your heart, there’s no better time to start.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#140
“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…”
― Peter Pan, the play
#141
“I say, Wendy,” he whispered to her, “always if you see me forgetting you, just keep on saying ‘I’m Wendy,’ and then I’ll remember.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#142
“Two is the beginning of the end.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#143
“To sit still seemed to him such a comic thing to do.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#144
“James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell. For we have come to his last moment.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#145
“His way was to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable for humans and snatch it from them; then the birds would follow and snatch it back; and they would all go chasing each other gaily for miles.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#146
“Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#147
“I remember kisses,” said Slightly. “Let me see. Aye, that is a kiss. A powerful thing.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#148
“They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego slipping from him.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#149
“He peeped in again to see why the music had stopped, and now he saw that Mrs. Darling had laid her head on the box, and that two tears were sitting on her eyes.
‘She wants me to unbar the window,’ thought Peter, ‘but I won’t, not I!’
He peeped again, and the tears were still there, or another two had taken their place.
‘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.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#150
“…and as she was crossing to the day-nursery he added thoughtlessly, ‘And shut that window. I feel a draught.’
‘O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open for them, always, always.”
― Peter Pan, the play
#151
“I’m fond of her, too. We can’t both have her, lady!”
― Peter Pan, the play
#152
“The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her.”
― Peter Pan, the play
Quotes From the Book “Peter and Wendy” by James Barrie
#153
“And still Wendy hugged Nana. ‘That’s right,’ he shouted. ‘Coddle her! Nobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the breadwinner, why should I be coddled, why, why, why!”
― Peter and Wendy
#154
“He always waited till the last moment, and you felt it was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life.”
― Peter and Wendy
#155
“Proud and insolent youth,” said Hook, “prepare to meet thy doom.” “Dark and sinister man,” Peter answered, “have at thee.”
― Peter and Wendy
#156
“I taught you to fight and to fly. What more could there be?”
― Peter and Wendy
#157
“The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on his dagger.”
― Peter and Wendy
#158
“I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”
― Peter and Wendy
#159
“There were odd stories about him; as when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.”
― Peter and Wendy
#160
“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.”
― Peter and Wendy
#161
“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.”
― Peter and Wendy
#162
“Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?”
― Peter and Wendy
#163
“They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can’t.”
― Peter and Wendy
#164
“It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if they did not admire him.”
― Peter and Wendy
#165
“Astonishing splashes of color.”
― Peter and Wendy
#166
“He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.”
― Peter and Wendy
#167
“Mr. Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours.”
― Peter and Wendy
#168
“All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the danger may be creeping up from behind.”
― Peter and Wendy
#169
“They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the same rate.”
― Peter and Wendy
#170
“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 and Wendy
#171
“I cut off a bit of him.’ ‘You!’ ‘Yes, me,’ said Peter sharply. ‘I wasn’t meaning to be disrespectful.’ ‘Oh, all right’ ‘But, I say, what bit?’ ‘His right hand.’ ‘Then he can’t fight now?”
― Peter and Wendy
#172
“To believe is to have wings.”
― Peter and Wendy
#173
“Why, what is the matter, father dear?’ ‘Matter!’ he yelled; he really yelled. ‘This tie, it will not tie.”
― Peter and Wendy
#174
“It was because I heard father and mother,’ he explained in a low voice, ‘talking about what I was to be when I became a man.’ He was extraordinarily agitated now. ‘I don’t want ever to be a man,’ he said with passion. ‘I want always to be a little boy and to have fun.”
― Peter and Wendy
#175
“How clever I am,’ he crowed rapturously, ‘oh, the cleverness of me!”
― Peter and Wendy
Quotes From the Book “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens” by James Barrie
#176
“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.”
― Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
#177
“He decided to appeal to the fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed to know a good deal.”
― Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens