Arthur Conan Doyle

A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.

To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.

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 look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.

Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.

There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.

Well, Watson, what do you make of it?'Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation.'How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.''I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me', said he.

...Recognising, as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe--""Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?" Asked Holmes, with some asperity."To the man of precised, scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly.""Then had you not better consult him?""I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently--""Just a little," said Holmes.

I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.

Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?' 'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.' 'The dog did nothing in the night-time.''That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes.

I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake.- Watson

By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation.''I shall be delighted.''You don't mind breaking the law?''Not in the least.''Nor running a chance of arrest?''Not in a good cause.''Oh, the cause is excellent!''Then I am your man.''I was sure that I might rely on you.

The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.

The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.

Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.

It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation.

You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.

I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, or how lonely the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland