Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

J.M. Barrie, fully Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet

Scottish Dramatist, Author, Novelist, best known as creator of Peter Pan

"Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance."

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

"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."

"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..."

"Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least."

"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."

"Oh the gladness of her gladness when she's glad, And the sadness of her sadness when she's sad, But the gladness of her gladness And the sadness of her sadness Are as nothing, Charles, To the badness of her badness when she's bad."

"Oh, it's — 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. Some women, the few, have charm for all; and most have charm for one. But some have charm for none."

"Oh, the cleverness of me!"

"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 kindnesses linger there also, to bloom in your twilight like evening primroses."

"On these magic shores children at play are forever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more."

"One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon."

"One could mention many loveable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon."

"One girl is worth more use than 20 boys."

"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..."

"Our life is a book to which we add daily, until suddenly we are finished, and then the manuscript is burned."

"Pan, who and what art thou? he cried huskily. I'm youth, I'm joy, Peter answered at a venture, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg."

"People who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves."

"Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees. Do you believe? he cried."

"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 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 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 say for certain what had been happening. It was really rather irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid."

"Peter,' she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are your exact feelings for me?'"

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning. That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland"

"See, he said, the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave her. It has saved her life."

"Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?"

"She adored all beautiful things in their every curve and fragrance, so that they became part of her. Day by day, she gathered beauty; had she had no heart (she who was the bosom of womanhood) her thoughts would still have been as lilies, because the good is the beautiful."

"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."

"She asked where he lived. Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning."

"She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it. Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies."

"She said out of pity for him, I shall give you a kiss if you like, but though he once knew, he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, Thank you, and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss."

"She was a large woman who seemed not so much dressed as upholstered."

"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."

"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."

"Shoot the Wendybird!"

"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."

"Some of my plays peter out and some pan out."

"Sometimes the little boy who calls me father brings me an invitation from his mother: I shall be so pleased if you will come and see me, and I always reply in some such words as these: Dear madam, I decline. And if David asks why I decline, I explain that it is because I have no desire to meet the woman."

"Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever. 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."

"Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them."

"Take care, lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe."

"Temper is a weapon that we hold by the blade."

"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."

"That is ever the way. 'Tis all jealousy to the bride and good wishes to the corpse."

"That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head."

"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."

"The best place a person can die, is where they die for others."

"‘The door', replied Maimie, 'will always, always be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me.’"

"The Elizabethan age might be better named the beginning of the smoking era."

"The fairies, as their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they were so madly in love with the little house that they could not bear to think they had finished it."