“It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those outré and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.”

“Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.”

“It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”

“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.”

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

“Where there is no imagination there is no horror.”

“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

“His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.”