James M. Barrie Quotes & Sayings

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. — James M. Barrie

A loving wife is better than making 50 in cricket, or even 99, beyond that I will not go. — James M. Barrie

For to have faith, is to have wings Peter Pan — James M. Barrie

May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me. — James M. Barrie

Yet if he upbraided her in his hurry, it was to repent bitterly his temper the next, and to feel its effects more than she, temper being a weapon that we hold by the blade. — James M. Barrie

I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg. — James M. Barrie

Courage: The lovely virtue-the rib of Himself that God sent down to His children. — James M. Barrie

Your heart is as fresh as your face; and that is well. The useless men are those who never change with the years. Many views that I held to in my youth and long afterwards are a pain to me now, and I am carrying away from Thrums memories of errors into which I fell at every stage of my ministry. When you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in humility. — James M. Barrie

There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make. — James M. Barrie

Make your feet your friend. — James M. Barrie

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

Ambition - it is the last infirmity of noble minds. — James M. Barrie

Times have changed since a certain author was executed for murdering his publisher. They say that when the author was on the scaffold he said good-bye to the minister and to the reporters, and then he saw some publishers sitting in the front row below, and to them he did not say good-bye. He said instead, "I'll see you again." — James M. Barrie

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. — James M. Barrie

Always try to be a litle kinder than necessary. — James M. Barrie

A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night. — James M. Barrie

As soon as you can say what you think and not what some other person has thought for you, you are on the way to being a remarkable man. — James M. Barrie

Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough. — James M. Barrie

His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants hall. — James M. Barrie

You [Scots] come of a race of men the very wind of whose name has swept to the ultimate seas. — James M. Barrie

The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let
them. — James M. Barrie

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

Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened. — James M. Barrie

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

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. — James M. Barrie

If I were younger, I'd know more. — James M. Barrie

The best place a person can die, is where they die for others. — James M. Barrie

The praise that comes from love does not make us vain, but more humble. — James M. Barrie

How shall we ever know if it's morning if there's no servant to pull up the blinds? — James M. Barrie

The most useless are those who never change through the years. — James M. Barrie

Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older. — James M. Barrie

All great writers begin with a good leather binding and a respectable title. — James M. Barrie

Those who aim low usually hit their targets. — James M. Barrie

A woman can be anything the man who loves her would have her be. — James M. Barrie

Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them. — James M. Barrie

Oh the gladness of their gladness when they're glad, And the sadness of their sadness when they're sad; But the gladness of their gladness, and the sadness of their sadness, Are as nothing to their badness when they're bad — James M. Barrie

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

Love is not blind; it is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. — James M. Barrie

I sometimes think, Mary, that it is a mistake to have a dog for a nurse. — James M. Barrie

One's religion is whatever he is most interested in. — James M. Barrie

We are all failures at least, all the best of us are. — James M. Barrie

Every time you say you don't believe in fairies, a fairy dies. — James M. Barrie

We are all of us failures, at least, the best of us are. — James M. Barrie

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. — James M. Barrie

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

Every man who is high up likes to think that he has done it all himself, and the wife smiles and lets it go at that. — James M. Barrie

That is ever the way. 'Tis all jealousy to the bride and good wishes to the corpse. — James M. Barrie

Those who are prepared to die are most prepared to live. — James M. Barrie

I like well to be in the company of explorers — James M. Barrie

We have a right to know the truth; no right to ask anything else from God, but the right to know that. — James M. Barrie

You canna expect to be baith grand and comfortable. — James M. Barrie

Some of my plays peter out and some pan out. — James M. Barrie

Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands! — James M. Barrie

Them that has china plates themsel's is the maist careful not to break the china plates of others — James M. Barrie

I bowl so slowly that if I don't like a ball I can run after it and bring it back — James 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. — James M. Barrie

Wendy: Sir, you are both ungallant and deficient! Peter: How am I deficient? Wendy: You're just a boy. — James M. Barrie

I am aware that those hateful persons called Original Researchers now maintain that Raleigh was not the man; but to them I turn a deaf ear. — James M. Barrie

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

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip. — James M. Barrie

If 'Hamlet' had been written in these days it would probably have been called 'The Strange Affair at Elsinore. — James M. Barrie

Heaven for climate, Hell for company. — James M. Barrie

She was a large woman who seemed not so much dressed as upholstered. — James M. Barrie

Always be a littler kinder than necessary. — James M. Barrie

You were hidden behind walls of ice; no man had passed them; I broke them down and love leapt to love, and you lie here, my beautiful, love in the arms of its lover. — James M. Barrie

And if he forgets them so quickly," Wendy argued, "how can we expect that he will go on remembering us? — James M. Barrie

The Elizabethan age might be better named the beginning of the smoking era.. — James M. Barrie

In dinner talk it is perhaps allowable to fling any faggot rather than let the fire go out. — James 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. — James M. Barrie

In love-making, as in other arts, those who do it best cannot tell how it is done. — James M. Barrie

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

Men's second childhood begins when a woman gets a hold of him. — James M. Barrie

The man who is in real danger is the man who thinks he is perfectly safe. — James M. Barrie

Facts were never pleasing to him. He acquired them with reluctance and got rid of them with relief. He was never on terms with them until he had stood them on their heads. — James M. Barrie

One girl is worth more use than 20 boys. — James M. Barrie

Fame is rot; daughters are the thing. — James M. Barrie

Forget not your past, for in the future it may help you grow — James M. Barrie

I know, I feel, that with the introduction of tobacco England woke up from a long sleep. Suddenly a new zest had been given to life. The glory of existence became a thing to speak of. Men who had hitherto only concerned themselves with the narrow things of home put a pipe into their mouths and became philosophers. — James M. Barrie

The man of science appears to be the only man who has something to say just now, and the only man who does not know how to say it. — James M. Barrie

The gates of heaven are so easily found when we are little, and they are always standing open to let children wander in. — James M. Barrie

I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching. — James M. Barrie

I've sometimes thought ... that the difference between us and the English is that the Scotch are hard in all other respects but soft with women, and the English are hard with women but soft in all other respects. — James M. Barrie

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

They hold their great balls in the open air, in what is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates. — James M. Barrie

Life is a cup of tea; the more heartily we drink the sooner we reach the dregs. — James M. Barrie

Everytime a child says 'I don't believe in fairies' there is a a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead. — James M. Barrie

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

You find a glimmer of happiness in this world, there's always someone who wants to destroy it. — James M. Barrie

If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me! — James M. Barrie

I should like to say that I left off smoking because I considered it a mean form of slavery, to be condemned for moral as well as physical reasons; but though I see the folly of smoking clearly now, I was blind to it for some months after I had smoked my last pipe. I gave up my most delightful solace, as I regarded it, for no other reason than that the lady who was willing to fling herself away on me said that I must choose between it and her. — James M. Barrie

We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it. — James M. Barrie

What is genius? It is the power to be a boy again at will. — James M. Barrie

We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours. — James M. Barrie

Anything is possible if you wish hard enough. — James M. Barrie

Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own. — James M. Barrie

Oh, God, if I were sure I were to die tonight I would repent at once. It is the commonest prayer in all languages. — James M. Barrie

Wise children always choose a mother who was a shocking flirt in her maiden days, and so had several offers before she accepted their fortunate papa. — James M. Barrie

What is algebra exactly; is it those three-cornered things? — James M. Barrie

He who distributes the milk of human kindness cannot help but spill a little on himself. — James M. Barrie

I do loathe explanations. — James M. Barrie