“That's when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good.”

“Peter. Peter Kavinsky.” Even saying his name is a remembered pleasure, something to savor, like a piece of chocolate dissolving on my tongue.”

“Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair”

“He smiled at two people walking by: a tall, good-looking boy with a streak of white in his dark hair and a brunette girl whose eyes were shaded by sunglasses. They ignored him. But”

“I quite like talking myself, but when Peter was in the room there wasn't much point, you just had to listen. He was unimaginably, overwhelmingly gifted. You had to imagine a cross between Dr. Johnson, Isaiah Berlin, Peter Sellers and don't forget Charlie Chaplin — because Peter was a great mime too. … He was inexhaustible. It was like talking to Europe, talking to history.”

“Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written.”

“As I went down to my car, [Peter Randall] said, "If you don't want to get involved I'll understand" I looked back at him. "You know damn well I'd have no choice." "I didn't," he said. "But I was hoping."”

“He who travels in the Barque of Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room.”

“I have a feeling that when I'm Stormy's age, these everyday moments will be what I remember: Peter's head bent, biting into a chocolate chip cookie; the sun coming through the cafeteria window, bouncing off his brown hair; him looking at me.”

“Michael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeered at him; so he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the end of the first year. She flew away with Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves and berries in the Neverland, and her one fear was that he might notice how short it had become; but he never noticed, he had so much to say about himself.
She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but new adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind.”