The Little Minister

Quotes and Notes

“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. But the biographer sees the last chapter while he is still at the first, and I have only to write over with ink what Gavin has written in pencil.”– pp. 6-7

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company.”– p. 109

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“You saw how she kept her feet among her shalls and wills. Never trust a Scotch man or woman who does not come to grief among them.”– p. 167

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“His reason had warned him to avoid the Egyptian, and his desire had consented to be dragged westward because they knew he had started too soon. When the proper time came they knocked reason on the head and carried him straight to Caddam. Here reason came to, and again began to state its case. Desires permitted him to halt, as if to argue the matter out, but were thus tolerant merely because from where he stood he could see Nanny’s doorway. When Babbie emerged from it reason seems to have made one final effort, for Gavin quickly took that side of a tree which is loved of squirrels at the approach of an enemy. He looked round the tree-trunk at her, and then reason discarded him.”– p. 217

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“But for her presence, the minister’s efforts would have been equally futile. Though not strong, however, he had the national horror of being beaten before a spectator, and once at school he had won a fight by telling his big antagonist to come on until the boy was tired of pumelling him.”– p. 219

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“…she had seen him do many things far more worthy of admiration without admiring them. This, indeed, is a sad truth, that we seldom give our love to what is worthiest in its object.”– p. 219

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“…for she was her mother in miniature, with a tongue that ran like a pump after the pans are full, not for use but for the mere pleasure of spilling.”– p. 297

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister

“Walter Lunny was a man who had to retrace his steps in telling a story if he tried short cuts, and so my custom was to wait patiently while he delved through the ploughed fields that always lay between him and his destination.”– p. 305

J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister