J. M. Barrie

1860–1937 · Scottish novelist & playwright, creator of Peter Pan

Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860–1937) was a Scottish dramatist and novelist best known for creating Peter Pan. A contemporary of Oscar Wilde, he was a master of drawing-room comedy; The Admirable Crichton (1902) is among his most admired plays. In it he built the character Ernest partly to lampoon the Wilde-style epigram-dropper — which is why one of Ernest’s lines eventually got mistaken for a genuine Wilde saying.

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2 quotes we’ve traced to J. M. Barrie

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

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“I'm not young enough to know everything”

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