Top 80 J.M. Barrie Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Take care, lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe.”

— J.M. Barrie

52. “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

53. “There are, I dare say, many lovers who would never have been drawn to each other had they met for the first time, as, say, they met the second time.”

— J.M. Barrie

54. “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

55. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

56. “The best place a person can die, is where they die for others.”

— J.M. Barrie

57. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

58. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

59. “No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”

— J.M. Barrie

60. “To refuse to grow old is the unmistakable sign of youth. I am not young enough to know everything.”

— J.M. Barrie

61. “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

62. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

63. “The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write on story, and writes another.”

— J.M. Barrie

64. “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 your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”

— J.M. Barrie

65. “Chapter VIII The Mermaids’ Lagoon.”

— J.M. Barrie

66. “If you knew how great is a mother’s love,′ Wendy told them triumphantly, ’you would have no fear.”

— J.M. Barrie

67. “Wendy, I ran away the day I was born.”

— J.M. Barrie

68. “I wasn’t crying about mothers,” he said rather indignantly. “I was crying because I can’t get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn’t crying.”

— J.M. Barrie

69. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

70. “You must be nice to him,′ Wendy impressed on her brothers. ‘What could we do if he were to leave us?”

— J.M. Barrie

71. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

72. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

73. “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 kindness linger there also, to bloom in your twilight like evening primroses.”

— J.M. Barrie

74. “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

75. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

76. “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.”

— J.M. Barrie

77. “He swore this terrible oath: ‘Hook or me this time.’ Now.”

— J.M. Barrie

78. “Why does everyone want to be something else? I love being me!”

— J.M. Barrie

79. “Their ignorance gave them one more glad hour;.”

— J.M. Barrie

80. “Sometimes he poised himself in the air, listening intently with his hand to his ear, and again he would stare down with eyes so bright that they seemed to bore two holes to earth.”

— J.M. Barrie

81. “The cry is answered by other braves; and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not very good at it.”

— J.M. Barrie

82. “You ladies who are everything to your husbands, save a girl from the dream of youth, have you never known that double-chinned industrious man laugh suddenly in a reverie and start up, as if he fancied he were being hailed from far away?”

— J.M. Barrie

83. “Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He made it up himself out of the way she said “Peter,” and he never stopped playing until she looked happy.”

— J.M. Barrie

84. “He was glad no one asked him what first impressions are; they were all too busy looking their best.”

— J.M. Barrie

85. “And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, and then he flew back to the Gardens.”

— J.M. Barrie

86. “It is a an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew about stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the thing yielded to him without contest, but there were occasions when it would have been better for the house if he had swallowed his pride and used a made-up tie.”

— J.M. Barrie

87. “Oh, Maimie,” he said rapturously, “do you know why I love you? It is because you are like a beautiful nest.”

— J.M. Barrie