C. L. R. James Quotes

Those who are prepared to die are most prepared to live.

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

astonishing splashes of colour

I like well to be in the company of explorers

He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up.

asleep to rummage in their minds

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

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

Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.

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.

What is afraid?' asked Peter longingly. He thought it must be some splendid thing. 'I do wish you would teach me how to be afraid, Maimie,' he said.

May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me.

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.

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.

If I were younger, I'd know more.

After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy.

Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The birds were flown

I do believe in fairies, I do, I do.

I think it's perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls.

I think one remains the same person throughout, merely passing, as it were, i these lapses of time from one room to another, but all in the same house.

Forever is a very long time Peter

Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be written in ink but in a golden splash.

He looked at her uncomfortably; blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.

He was never more sinister than when he was most polite.

...it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings of England.

It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if they did not admire him.

They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can't.

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.

All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the danger may be creeping up from behind.

He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.

Some day,' said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get you.' Hook wetted his dry lips, 'Aye,' he said, 'that's the fear that haunts me.

Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?

You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

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

Fairies don’t live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them

Two is the beginning of the end.

Them that has china plates themsel's is the maist careful not to break the china plates of others

When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she really came, I shot her.

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.

You canna expect to be baith grand and comfortable.

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.

Life is a cup of tea; the more heartily we drink the sooner we reach the dregs.

If 'Hamlet' had been written in these days it would probably have been called 'The Strange Affair at Elsinore.

Some of my plays peter out and some pan out.

Boy, why are you crying?

A loving wife is better than making 50 in cricket, or even 99, beyond that I will not go.

If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water.

You were hidden behind walls of ice; no man had passed them; I broke them down and love leapt to love, and you lie here, my beautiful, love in the arms of its lover.

I am aware that those hateful persons called Original Researchers now maintain that Raleigh was not the man; but to them I turn a deaf ear.

Don't have a mother,' he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very over-rated persons.