Quotes by Arthur Conan Doyle

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.

When a man does a queer thing, or two queer things, there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you begin to wonder

Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.

In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test myself.

From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however, had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to share my

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.

The man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing, mused the Inspector, Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times... What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off the treasure! Hows that?On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside, said Holmes.

No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. ~ Sherlock Holmes

Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper. ~ Sherlock Holmes

You know, Watson, I dont mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. --Sherlock Holmes

To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year, Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed, The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

Oh how Ive missed you, Holmes.

Yes, the setting (Dartmoor) is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.Sherlock Holmes

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.

Art in the blood is liable to take the strongest forms

Before we begin to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know, so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental.

Now, Watson, said he, we have picked up two clues this morning. One is the bicycle with the Palmer tyre, and we see what that has led to. The other is the bicycle with the patched Dunlop. Before we start to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know, so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental.

Thats rather a broad idea, I remarked. Ones ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature, he answered.