Sherlock: If the occasional pile of clutter offends you, by all means move it. John: Last time I tried that I was bitten by a large spider you appeared to be using as a bookmark.

More accurately, on the bed and on the table lay various pieces of what had once been a body.Holmes was leaning with his back against the wall, his countenance deathly white. “The door was open,”...

What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable...

I am lost without my Boswell.[Sherlock Holmes on Dr. Watson.]

The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.

Your problem, dear chap, as I have had occassion to remind you, is that you see but you do not observe; you hear but you do not listen. For a literary man, Watson – and...

Something has gone amiss with the world, he found himself thinking. Something has changed in the marrow, and I’m at a loss to make sense of it.

Everyone please stand behind the yellow line until the doors open. No food, drink, flash photography, or video cameras are permitted. Once aboard the ride, please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at...

we are two like-minded creatures too well-matched, both equal halves of a whole not altogether wholesome

You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?

Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” I remarked, after we had sat some time smoking in silence. “I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have...

The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it.

Odiava quel luogo – il luogo maledetto come lo aveva battezzato nella sua mente – eppure non poteva negare il forte richiamo che esercitava sulla propria persona. Sarebbe stato capace di individuarlo anche attraverso una...

That is quite all right. I scarcely believe it myself.

do not exist,” or in any case do not exist in the same way as do the inhabitants of the real world. But things manifest in an entirely different way on the unconscious level, which...

Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You...

I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity or from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked...

I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley’s No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a...

…So you can put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Busybody Holmes.

My book is extremely graphic. I make no apologies for it. But it is graphic only because I told the truth about what the Ripper did to his victims.

Sherlock: You’re keeping a SCRAPBOOK. Only old ladies and pre-pubescent girls keep scrapbooks, John.John: It’s not a scrapbook, Sherlock. I’m collecting papers relevant to the cases. It helps me remember the details. And it was...

My friend opened a small box which Lestrade had produced. Inside lay a beautiful silver cigarette case monogrammed with Holmes’s initials, underneath which ran the words, “With the Respects of Scotland Yard, November 1888.”Sherlock Holmes...

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...

To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.

My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!

No ghosts need apply. – Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

Amazing, really, to think of what a man could achieve with the simple ability to put pen to paper and spin a decent yarn.

How do you arrive at it? How do you unravel the meaning of something that doesn’t want to be known?

Suddenly the images in the center of the room became more than images. They solidified.

A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman’s love, however badly he may have treated her.

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest...

I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.

You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.” My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered...

So it was, my dear Watson, that at two o’clock today I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson...

noi”.

You know, we bungled a number of important cases – regrettably. Of course, who wants to read about the failures? I certainly don’t.

She was as good as she was beautiful and as intelligent as she was good.

Am dining at Goldini’s Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H.” It was a nice...

My business is that of every other good citizen – to uphold the law.

I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use...

En la narrativa de género es necesario un narrador, testigo de la confusión, llámese Watson, Petrie o Axel, que crea que lo que sucede es real tan sólo porque su voz narra en tercera persona,...

No, Sherlock doesn’t need another brain. But he could benefit from an extra heart.

As he passed a hand over his eyes, I recalled the he could not have slept more than twenty hours in the last seven days. For the first time since I had known him, Sherlock...

Her cuisine is limited but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman.”[Sherlock Holmes, on Mrs. Hudson’s cooking.]

The affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising commencement. You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful...

To begin at the beginning.

When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny.

Watson is a cheap, efficient little sod of a literary device. Holmes doesn’t need him to solve crimes any more than he needs a ten-stone ankle weight. The audience, Arthur. The audience needs Watson as...