“I undid the wrappings with great curiosity, for Holmes did not normally give gifts. I opened the dark velvet jewller's box and found inside a shiny new set of picklocks, a younger version of his own. "Holmes, ever the romantic. Mrs. Hudson would be pleased.”

“Tell me about yourself, Miss Russel."I started to give him the obligatory response, first the demurral and then the reluctant flat autobiography, but some slight air of polite inattention in his manner stopped me. Instead, I found myself grinning at him."Why don't you tell me about myself, Mr. Holmes?”

“I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915.”

“That's what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate.”

“You cannot help being a female, and I should be something of a fool were I to discount your talents merely because of their housing.”

“Life has ill-prepared me for finding any enjoyment in a press of merrymakers.”

“XVXVI, or 10-5-10-5-1, yielded H-E-H-E-A, which, unless she wanted to show her derisive laughter, made no sense.”

“Suddenly, it occurred to me that my feelings towards the little man were distinctly maternal. Good God, I thought, how utterly revolting, and I turned my mind firmly to the problem at hand.”

“Pray tell,” she said, although her voice told him not to.He ignored her tone, let out a thoughtful cloud of smoke, and said, ...”

“Everyone is allowed a weakness, even women of the twentieth century.”

“I took to the Bodleian library as to a lover and ... would sit long hours in Bodley's arms to emerge, blinking and dazed with the smell and feel of all those books.”