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.
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.
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 the Neverland, that everytime you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them of vindictively as fast as possible.
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 had seen many tragedies, but he had forgotten them all.
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.
All you need is Faith, Trust and a little Pixie Dust.
You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.
I’ll hold you in my heart, until I can hold you in my arms.
Good form without knowing it is the best form of all.
If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids singing.
She says she glories in being abandoned.
I remember kisses,” said Slightly. “Let me see. Aye, that is a kiss. A powerful thing.
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.
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...
All her tormentings of me turned suddenly into sweetnesses, and who could torment like this exquisite fury, wondering in sudden flame why she could give herself to anyone, while I wondered only why she could give herself to me. It may be that I wondered over-much. Perhaps that was why I lost her.
Whenever a child says “I don’t believe in fairies” there’s a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead.
Life and death, the child and the mother, are ever meeting as the one draws into harbour and the other sets sail. They exchange a bright “All’s well” and pass on.
There is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf.
If you knew how great is a mother’s love, you would have no fear.