Peter Pan Quotes

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“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!”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“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.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“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, Peter Pan

“Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me.

I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all. I know young people look at me and think my youth seems so far away, but it's all around me, and you're all around me. Tiger Lily, do you think magic exists if it can be explained? I can explain why I loved you, I can explain the theory of evolution that tells me why mermaids live in Neverland and nowhere else. But it still feels magic.

The lost boys all stood at our wedding. Does it seem odd to you that they could have stood at a wedding that wasn't yours and mine? It does to me. and I'm sorry for it, and for a lot, and I also wouldn't change it.

It is so quiet here. Even with all the trains and the streets and the people. It's nothing like the jungle. The boys have grown. Everything has grown. Do you think you will ever grow? I hope not. I like to think that even if I change and fade away, some other people won't.

I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me - of all the particles that will spread everywhere - will float all the way to Neverland, and be part of a flower or something like that, like that poet said, the one that your Tik Tok loved. I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy. Even for you and Tik Tok. and for you and me.

Always,
Your Peter

P.S. Please give my love to Tink. She was always such a funny little bug.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“She asked where he lived.

Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“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.”
― J M Barrie, Peter Pan

“Why can't you fly now, mother?"
"Because I am grown up, dearest. 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

“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.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“How can I describe Peter's face, the pieces of him that stick to my heart? Peter sometimes looked aloof and distant; sometimes his face was open and soft as a bruise. Sometimes he looked completely at Tiger Lily, as if she were the point on which all the universe revolved, as if she were the biggest mystery of life, or as if she were a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared. And sometimes it would all disappear into carelessness, confidence, amusement, as if he didn't need anyone or anything on this earth to feel happy and alive.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“There was no twinkle in his eyes.
"Maybe I just love some of you. Maybe not enough."
Tiger Lily blinked at him, and she didn't understand how anyone could only love a part. Her greedy heart didn't work that way.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“You just think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter explained, "and they lift you up in the air.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“To not do what you can to protect someone, that's cowardly.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“Everyone will think I'm ugly."
Tik Tok smiled. "That's true. But we are a small village. We have narrow tastes. There's no telling who else in the world would think you're beautiful.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“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, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

“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. ”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“And Peter laughed, and when he did, all the Devils grinned, because Peter's laugh was a most contagious thing.”
― Brom, The Child Thief

“I am the best there ever was!”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“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.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“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.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“For Peter's smile is a most contagious thing.”
― Brom, The Child Thief

“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...”
― J.M. Barrie

“[Peter Pan] has never broken his terrible habit of eavesdropping. So, maybe that wasn't the rustle of pages you heard while this story lasted, but Peter Pan himself, listening in. In exchanged for a story of yours, he might show you his most prized possession: James Hooks' map of Neverland.

In exchange for a smile, he may show you Neverland itself.”
― Geraldine McCaughrean, Peter Pan in Scarlet

“An unspoken rivalry threaded their relationship, in which Tiger Lily thought that if she could keep up with him, she could hold tighter to him. It didn't occur to her there was anything in which Peter would want her to fail. But sometimes, I could see that, even for him, she was too fast, too sure-footed, and didn't seem to need him quite enough.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“Look," Peter said.
To the north was a series of vast grassy plains, and there, just looking like specks at first, was a herd of horses, a species that in Neverland had never been tamed. They were beautiful, flashes of brown and black and tan, their coats gleaming. There was no reason for them to be running that Tiger Lily could see. It was likely that they just loved to run.
"That's what I want my life to be," Peter said, staring down at the horses.
Tiger Lily sank against him and watched the herd, and thought that was what she wanted too.”
― Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily

“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, Peter Pan

“Because Peter promised them adventures and happiness and then took them away to the island where they died. They weren’t forever young, unless dying when you were young kept you that way for always.”
― Christina Henry, Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook