β
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan (Spanish Edition))
β
Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
I'm not young enough to know everything.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (The Admirable Crichton)
β
Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
To live will be an awfully big adventure.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?
β
β
J.M. Coetzee
β
The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (The Little White Bird)
β
Do you believe in fairies?...If you believe, clap your hands!
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Never is an awfully long time.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
All children, except one, grow up.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan (Spanish Edition))
β
Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Stars are beautiful, but they may not take part in anything, they must just look on forever.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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!
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan (Tuffy Story Books))
β
God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (The Little Minister)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
We are all failures- at least the best of us are.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? Thatβs where Iβll always love you. Thatβs where Iβll be waiting.
β
β
James V. Hart (Hook)
β
You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always try to be a little kinder than is necessary?
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
If you have it [love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
Just always be waiting for me.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
She asked where he lived.
Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Stars are beautiful, but they must 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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Life is a long lesson in humility.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (The Little Minister)
β
There is a saying in the Neverland that,every time you breathe, a grown-up dies.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Colpo di fulmine. The thunderbolt, as Italians call it. When love strikes someone like lightning, so powerful and intense it canβt be denied. Itβs beautiful and messy,
cracking a chest open and spilling their soul out for the world to see. It turns a person inside out, and thereβs no going back from it. Once the thunderbolt hits, your life is
irrevocably changed.
β
β
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Go for it, while you can. I know you have it in you. And I can't promise you'll get everything you want, but I can promise nothing will change if you don't try.
β
β
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
β
When all else fails, philosophize.
β
β
J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace)
β
The last thing he ever said to me was, 'Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Absence makes the heart grow fonder⦠or forgetful.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Forget them, Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again.
Never is an awfully long time.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
The secret of happiness is not doing what we like but in liking what we do.
β
β
J.M. Coetzee
β
Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life)
β
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.
β
β
J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, βOh, why canβt you remain like this for ever!β This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens)
β
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
Nonsense. Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older, and then before you know it, they're grown.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Rhage stepped out in front of him (JM), "Hey, hi! How are you?" Hollywood stuck his hand out. "I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the piece of meat that's going to force you headfirst into your buddy Quinn's Hummer as soon as it gets here. Just figured I'd introduced myself before I rope your ass and throw you over my shoulder like a bag of sand.
β
β
J.R. Ward (Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #8))
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (The Little Minister)
β
One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Boy, why are you crying?
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
How about we just be Haven and Carmine?β she suggested. βWe donβt know the ending, but we can always hope for the best.β
βI like that,β he said. βBesides, thereβs a reason we donβt know how the story ends.β
βWhy?β
βBecause it doesnβt.
β
β
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
β
We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
Nella vita: chi non risica, non rosica," he said finally, his voice quiet. "In life: nothing ventured, nothing gained. My mom used to tell us that. It's been a long time, but I can still hear her saying it.
β
β
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
β
For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.
"So, Pan," said Hook at last, "this is all your doing."
"Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing."
"Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom."
"Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Sir, you are both ungallant and deficient!
How am I deficient?
You're just a boy.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
You can play it safe, and I wouldn't blame you for it. You can continue as you've been doing, and you'll survive, but is that what you want? Is that enough?
β
β
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
β
Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring-cleaning time comes?
Of course Peter promised, and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite easily. Funny. But she seemd satisfied.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love. The gaze of love is not deluded. It sees what is best in the beloved even when what is best in the beloved finds it hard to emerge into the light.
β
β
J.M. Coetzee (Slow Man)
β
A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
the real "work" of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me.
To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing-- that demands real effort.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World)
β
When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair. You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself "All is lost. I have to start all over again." This is not true. What you have gained you have gained....When you return to the the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you started.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
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.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life)
β
As soon as we are alone,...inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediatel;y shut ou all our iner doubts, anxieities, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distraction manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Making All Things New and Other Classics)
β
It was then that Hook bit him.
Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. 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 he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don't you often hope: 'May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.' But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World)
β
To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life)
β
There are many different kinds of bravery. There's the bravery of thinking of others before one's self. Now, your father has never brandished a sword nor fired a pistol, thank heavens. But he has made many sacrifices for his family, and put away many dreams.
Michael: Where did he put them?
Mrs. Darling: He put them in a drawer. And sometimes, late at night, we take them out and admire them. But it gets harder and harder to close the drawer... He does. And that is why he is brave.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Tell me, Mr. DeMarco. Whatβs love to you?β
[β¦]
He glared at his teacher. βI think itβs ridiculous youβre even trying to define it like itβs something material you can just go find if you want it. People use the word too loosely as it is. They say they love this and they love that, when they donβt. They just like the shiβ uh, stuff. Love is something that changes you, and if you really loved all the crap you say you love, youβd never know who you were because youβd constantly be changing. Once you love, you love forever. You canβt help it.
β
β
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
β
I donβt know if you have ever seem a map of a personβs mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a childβs mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.
β
β
J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
β
Youβre too good for me.β
He laughed. βAre we talking about the same person? The selfish fucker who curses and yells, blows up cars and beats up people, because he has a temper he canβt control? You know, the one who drinks like a fish and fries his brain with drugs? That person is too good for you?β
She shook her head. βIβm talking about the boy who shared his chocolate bar with me when he probably never shared anything before, who gave me his mamaβs favourite book, because he thought I deserved to read. The one who seems to be constantly fixing me up when I get hurt. Iβm talking about the boy who treats me like Iβm a regular girl, the one who desperately needs his bedroom cleaned and laundry washed but chooses to live in a mess and wear dirty clothes, because heβs too polite to ask the girl he kisses for help.β
βWow,β Carmine said. βIβd like to meet that motherfucker.
β
β
J.M. Darhower (Sempre (Sempre, #1))
β
It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you canβt) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. 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 prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
β
β
J.M. Barrie
β
At issue here is the question: "To whom do I belong? God or to the world?" Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.
As long as I keep running about asking: "Do you love me? Do you really love me?" I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with "ifs." The world says: "Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much." There are endless "ifs" hidden in the world's love. These "ifs" enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world's love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain "hooked" to the world-trying, failing,and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen