Arthur Conan Doyle · 303 pages
Rating: (15.7K votes)
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.”
“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 that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”
“Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.”
“If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.”
“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.”
“When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.”
“Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.”
“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”
“There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy.”
“Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.”
“The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest.”
“For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.”
“I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix”
“There is a danger there - a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?”
“When people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank.”
“All right, Watson. Don’t look so scared,” he muttered in a very weak voice. “It’s not as bad as it seems.”
“Thank God for that!”
“I’m a bit of a single-stick expert, as you know. I took most of them on my guard. It was the second man that was too much for me.”
“What can I do, Holmes? Of course, it was that damned fellow who set them on. I’ll go and thrash the hide off him if you give the word.”
“Good old Watson!(...)”
“No ghosts need apply.
- Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”
“It is all in the way of professional experience.
- Sherlock Holmes”
“It was worth a wound--it was worth many wounds--to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”
“You are right," he cried with an immense sigh of relief. "It is quite superficial." His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. "By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.”
“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 heroes still may strut, Dickens’s delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray’s worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated.”
“We give you best, Holmes. I believe you are the devil himself.”
“She entered with ungainly struggle like some huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop.”
“When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it.”
“. . . and meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope that the light of truth is breaking through”
“A fortune for one man that was more than he needed should not be built on ten thousand ruined men who were left without the means of life.”
“When will you be pleased to dine, Mr. Holmes?' Mrs. Hudson asked. 'Seven-thirty, the day after to-morrow' said he.”
“Era peor la herida... eran peor muchas heridas... que saber la profundidad de lealtad y amor que yacía detrás de esa fría máscara. Los ojos severos y claros se apagaron por un momento, y los firmes labios se agitaron. Por una única vez alcancé a ver un gran corazón tan bien como un gran cerebro. Todos mis años de humildad así como de servicio fiel culminaron en ese momento de revelación.”
“I don't care if she ever makes a basket that can hold grain, but I want her to be here with me. I want her to be close to me as I work or fish, and I want her to lie next to me in the furs at night. In my mind, she is with me always and forever.
Finally, its clear to me that I want her for more than children.”
“Year by year, his life wasn't amounting to anything at all...And yet, another part of him had expanded: his self-consciousness, his self-pity -- oh, the tediousness of it...Shouldn't he return to a life where he might slice his own importance, to where he might relinquish this overrated control over his own destiny and perhaps be subtracted from its determination altogether? He might even experience that greatest luxury of not noticing himself at all.”
“My God doesn’t love me or hate me or watch over me or know me at all, and I feel no love for or loyalty to my God. My God just is.”
“I didn’t do it to you, I did it to her. Maybe
your past self thinks it’s funny.”
“She doesn’t.”
“That’s not my fault. Besides, I’m not a mind
reader. You expect me to realize you’re
speaking on behalf of all Lucindas ever, every time you talk.
You never said anything about not razzing
your past lives. It’s all in good fun. For me, anyway.”
“I’m over a thousand years old. I’ve seen it all. You, sweetcheeks, are nothing new.” At what must have been an outraged expression on her face, he laughed again. “Come on. Surely you can’t think you are the only female out there who’s had a rough life, had her heart walked on, been kept in a dungeon for three centuries, blah, blah, pick your trauma, and are now stomping around with all this pent-up anger you spill like acid on everyone who gets to know you.” He narrowed his gaze at her. “How close am I?”
Sin’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. She finally snapped it shut to avoid looking like a fish gasping on the bank of a river.
“That’s what I thought.” He made a shooing gesture with his hand. “No, run along and go be caustic with someone who cares. Oh, wait, no one cares, do they? Because you won’t let them--”
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