Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man.

My sympathies and my love went out to her, even as my hand had in the garden. I felt that years of the conventionalities of life could not teach me to know her sweet, brave nature as had this one day of strange experiences. Yet there were two thoughts which sealed the words of affection upon my lips. She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time. Worst still, she was rich.

"The division seems rather unfair," I remarked. "You have done
all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets
the credit, pray what remains for you?"
"For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the
cocaine-bottle." And he stretched his long white hand up for
it.

"When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his cigarette into the fire.
"Well?" said he.
"Do you not find it interesting?"
"To a collector of fairy-tales.

"Oh! A mystery is it?' I cried, rubbing my hands. 'This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. "The proper study of mankind is man" you know"

"It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent solution. Would you
care to try it?"
"No, indeed," I answered brusquely. "My constitution has not got
over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra
strain upon it."
He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he
said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find
it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the
mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment."

It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it.

One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott’s heroes still may strut, Dickens’s delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray’s worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated.

Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters?

It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.

I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of daily life.

I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.

The strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes.