Mary Martin

"Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes."

"Even as a baby I quickly learned to crawl out of my crib. … They'd put up barriers but I learned how to go over them."

"Peter Pan is perhaps the most important thing, to me, that I have ever done in theater."

"I can't tell you the joy I felt in flying in that show … I loved it so. The freedom of spirit that was Peter Pan was suddenly there for me. I discovered I was happier in the air than on the ground."

"Neverland is the way I would like real life to be … timeless, free, mischievous, filled with gaiety, tenderness, and magic."

"You are my Peter Pan."

"Mother was the disciplinarian, but it was Daddy who could turn me into an angel with just one look."

"Sometimes I think that I cheated my own family and my closest friends by giving to audiences so much of the love I might have kept for them. But that’s the way I was made; I truly don't think I could help it"

"Never, never, never can I say I had a frustrating childhood. It was all joy. Mother used to say she never had seen such a happy child — that I awakened each morning with a smile. I don’t remember that, but I do remember that I never wanted to go to bed, to go to sleep, for fear I’d miss something."

"It was all role playing. I felt Larry was my little brother, Ben my big brother. Role playing was something I had known since I was born, but it wasn't a good basis for a marriage."

"I was seventeen years old, a married woman without real responsibilities, miserable about my mixed-up emotions, afraid there was something awfully wrong with me because I didn’t enjoy being a wife. Worst of all, I didn't have enough to do."

"Anything was better than playing cards, and I was doing something I wanted to do — creating."

"Things can get very lovey and feasty with a bunch of stimulated hams."

"The irrepressible boy who refused to grow up had been the star's favorite character since childhood, and she longed to play the role on stage."

"Mary was forty years old when she first played Peter Pan, yet she rehearsed fourteen hours a day and seemed fresh and high spirited while everyone else in the company drooped with fatigue. She was determined to fly all over the stage in the part."