A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul.
Watson, in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot"
"I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done. Who knows?"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot"
He took down the great book in which, day by day, he filed the agony columns of the various London journals. "Dear me!" said he, turning over the pages, "what a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was given to a student of the unusual!"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Red Circle"
"Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Red Circle"
"There is one correspondent who is a sure draw, Watson. That is the bank. Single ladies must live, and their passbooks are compressed diaries."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"
"Besides, on general principles it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"
To Holmes I wrote showing how rapidly and surely I had got down to the roots of the matter. In reply I had a telegram asking for a description of Dr. Shlessinger's left ear.
Watson, in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"
"And a singularly consistent investigation you have made, my dear Watson," said he. "I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"
"Now we will take another line of reasoning. When you follow two separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax"
Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. 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. On the other hand, his payments were princely. I have no doubt that the house might have been purchased at the price which Holmes paid for his rooms during the years that I was with him.
From "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"
She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent.
Watson, describing Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"
"I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"
"Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"
"You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible!"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"
"My correspondence, however, is, as you know, a varied one, and I am somewhat upon my guard against any packages which reach me."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"
It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August -- the most terrible August in the history of the world.
First sentence of "His Last Bow"
The secretary chuckled. "She might almost personify Britannia," said he, "with her complete self-absorption and general air of comfortable somnolence."
Baron Von Herling, in "His Last Bow"
"I may say that a good many of these papers have come through me, and I need not add are thoroughly untrustworthy. It would brighten my declining years to see a German cruiser navigating the Solent according to the mine-field plans which I have furnished."
Sherlock Holmes, in "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."
Watson and Holmes, in "His Last Bow"
"With my hair cut and a few other superficial changes I shall no doubt reappear at Claridge's to-morrow as I was before this American stunt -- I beg your pardon, Watson, my well of English seems to be permanently defiled -- before this American job came my way."
Sherlock Holmes, in "His Last Bow"
"Here is the fruit of my leisured ease, the magnum opus of my latter years!" He picked up the volume from the table and read out the whole title, Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen. "Alone I did it. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days when I watched the little working gangs as once I watched the criminal world of London."
Sherlock Holmes, in "His Last Bow"
"Well, you realize your position, you and your accomplice here. If I were to shout for help as we pass through the village--"
"My dear sir, if you did anything so foolish you would probably enlarge the two limited titles of our village inns by giving us 'The Dangling Prussian' as a signpost."
Von Bork and Holmes, in "His Last Bow"
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. 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. Start her up, Watson, for it's time that we were on our way. I have a check for five hundred pounds which should be cashed early, for the drawer is quite capable of stopping it if he can."
Sherlock Holmes, in the final paragraph of "His Last Bow"
I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences. This must cease and he must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary. 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.
From the preface to the collection The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes.
"But why not eat?"
"Because the faculties become refined when you starve them. Why, surely, as a doctor, my dear Watson, you must admit that what your digestion gains in the way of blood supply is so much lost to the brain. I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. Therefore, it is the brain I must consider."
Watson and Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone"
"It is a small point, Count Sylvius, but perhaps you would kindly give me my prefix when you address me. You can understand that, with my routine of work, I should find myself on familiar terms with half the rogues' gallery, and you will agree that exceptions are invidious."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone"
"No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone"
Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M. D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid.
From "The Adventure of Thor Bridge"
Among these unfinished tales is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world. No less remarkable is that of the cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew. A third case worthy of note is that of Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a match box in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science.
From "The Adventure of Thor Bridge"
"Well, if dollars make no difference to you, think of the reputation. If you pull this off every paper in England and America will be booming you. You'll be the talk of two continents."
"Thank you, Mr. Gibson, I do not think that I am in need of booming."
Neil Gibson and Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of Thor Bridge"
"You've done yourself no good this morning, Mr. Holmes, for I have broken stronger men than you. No man ever crossed me and was the better for it."
"So many have said so, and yet here I am," said Holmes, smiling.
Neil Gibson and Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of Thor Bridge"