Are you prepared to be the complete Watson?” he asked.”Watson?””Do-you-follow-me-Watson; that one. Are you prepared to have quite obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me chances of scoring off you,...

All this was very loose guessing, and I don’t pretend it was ingenious or scientific. I wasn’t any kind of Sherlock Holmes. But I have always fancied I had a kind of instinct about questions...

Tell me about yourself, Miss Russel.”I started to give him the obligatory response, first the demurral and then the reluctant flat autobiography, but some slight air of polite inattention in his manner stopped me. Instead,...

Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.

London, noisy, noisome, nattering London: aged, ageless, dignified, eccentric in her ways – seat of empire, capital of all the world; that indomitable grey lady of drab aspect but sparkling personality – was at her...

It’s elementary, my dear Winifred.

A wise man does not always admit to everything he knows. And sometimes an overly-credulous friend can be a source of mild amusement.”~Sherlock Holmes

I hear it still. As I lay down my pen and take to my bed, I am aware of the bow being drawn across the bridge and the music rises into the night sky. It...

Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.

You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind...

I must thank you,’ said Sherlock Holmes, ‘for calling my attention to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied...

The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in...

Sebastian non aveva mai incontrato anima viva in quel luogo che sembrava essere dimenticato da tutto e da tutti, ogni volta che si era recato ad ammirare il salto nel vuoto compiuto dal fiume ogni...

But as of late, I have been consumed with the significant task of revising the latest edition of my Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, while alternately putting the finishing touches on my four volumes of...

It’s barely changed since the faceless colour committee originally selected it in 1908 when the first map of the Underground was designed and the Bakerloo conclusively became brown, a very early twentieth-century brown, which brings...

How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It...

There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No...

I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.

One should always look for a possible alternative, and provide against it. -Sherlock Holmes

Do you remember,” he said, “one of Holmes’s little scores over Watson about the number of steps up to the Baker Street lodging? Poor old Watson had been up and down them a thousand times,...

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!