Quotes from His Last Bow

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“You know,' I answered, with some emotion, for I had never seen so much of Holmes' heart before, 'that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all languages,”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“(...) We are bound to go.”
My answer was to rise from the table.
“You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.”
He sprang up and shook me by the hand.
“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“This great and sombre stage is set for something
more worthy than that,” said he. “It is fortunate
for this community that I am not a criminal.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“There have,” said I, “been numerous petty thefts.”
Holmes snorted his contempt.
“This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than that,” said he. “It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“It would be superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson," said he. "A candid observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“How do you know that?"
"I followed you."
"I saw no one."
"That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“By all means."
"The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you entered this room, Watson”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“Kāda gan tam ir nozīme, Vatson? - Holmss nopietni teica, nolikdams papīra lapu. - Kāds mērķis ir sasniegts ar šo bēdu, varmācības un šausmu apli? Tam ir jāvirzās uz kaut kādu mērķi, jo pretējā gadījumā taču pār mūsu pasauli valda nejaušība, kas ir neiedomājami. Bet uz kādu mērķi? Tas, lūk, ir pastāvīgais, mūžīgais jautājums, uz kuru cilvēka saprāts vēl joprojām nav spējis sniegt atbildi.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“But you, Holmes-you have changed very little-save for that horrible goatee."
"These are the sacrifices one makes for one's country, Watson," said Holmes, pulling at his little tuft. "To-morrow it will be but a dreadful memory.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“La educación no termina nunca, Watson. Es una serie de lecciones, de las cuales las más instructivas son las últimas.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“Esta vez, Watson, califíqueme en su relato como de burro completo.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“Él las detestaba y desconfiaba de ellas, pero era siempre un adversario caballeroso.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

“Brisa del mar, sol y paciencia, Watson; todo se andará.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from His Last Bow

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― Sonya Hartnett, quote from Surrender

“. . . waves of desert heat . . . I must’ve passed out, because when I woke up I was shivering and stars wheeled above a purple horizon. . . . Then the sun came up, casting long shadows. . . . I heard a vehicle coming. Something coming from far away, gradually growing louder. There was the sound of an engine, rocks under tires. . . . Finally it reached me, the door opened, and Dirk Bickle stepped out. . . .

But anyway so Bickle said, “Miracles, Luke. Miracles were once the means to convince people to abandon reason for faith. But the miracles stopped during the rise of the neocortex and its industrial revolution. Tell me, if I could show you one miracle, would you come with me and join Mr. Kirkpatrick?”

I passed out again, and came to. He was still crouching beside me. He stood up, walked over to the battered refrigerator, and opened the door. Vapor poured out and I saw it was stocked with food. Bickle hunted around a bit, found something wrapped in paper, and took a bottle of beer from the door. Then he closed the fridge, sat down on the old tire, and unwrapped what looked like a turkey sandwich.

He said, “You could explain the fridge a few ways. One, there’s some hidden outlet, probably buried in the sand, that leads to a power source far away. I figure there’d have to be at least twenty miles of cable involved before it connected to the grid. That’s a lot of extension cord. Or, this fridge has some kind of secret battery system. If the empirical details didn’t bear this out, if you thoroughly studied the refrigerator and found neither a connection to a distant power source nor a battery, you might still argue that the fridge had some super-insulation capabilities and that the food inside had been able to stay cold since it was dragged out here. But say this explanation didn’t pan out either, and you observed the fridge staying the same temperature week after week while you opened and closed it. Then you’d start to wonder if it was powered by some technology beyond your comprehension. But pretty soon you’d notice something else about this refrigerator. The fact that it never runs out of food. Then you’d start to wonder if somehow it didn’t get restocked while you slept. But you’d realize that it replenished itself all the time, not just while you were sleeping. All this time, you’d keep eating from it. It would keep you alive out here in the middle of nowhere. And because of its mystery you’d begin to hate and fear it, and yet still it would feed you. Even though you couldn’t explain it, you’d still need it. And you’d assume that you simply didn’t understand the technology, rather than ascribe to it some kind of metaphysical power. You wouldn’t place your faith in the hands of some unknowable god. You’d place it in the technology itself. Finally, in frustration, you’d come to realize you’d exhausted your rationality and the only sensible thing to do would be to praise the mystery. You’d worship its bottles of Corona and jars of pickled beets. You’d make up prayers to the meats drawer and sing about its light bulb. And you’d start to accept the mystery as the one undeniable thing about it. That, or you’d grow so frustrated you’d push it off this cliff.”

“Is Mr. Kirkpatrick real?” I asked.

After a long gulp of beer, Bickle said, “That’s the neocortex talking again.”
― Ryan Boudinot, quote from Blueprints Of The Afterlife

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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