“It might have driven me mad; but I was always a pretty stubborn one, so I just held on and bided my time.”

“It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?”

“Now, Watson,' said Holmes, (...) 'you'll come with me, won't you?''If I can be of use.''Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use. And a chronicler still more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.'(...)'You have a grand gift of silence, Watson,' said he. 'It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over-pleasant.”

“I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right.”

“By my soul! I would rather have a dry death," quoth Sir Oliver. "Though, Mort Dieu! I have eaten so many fish that it were but justice that the fish should eat me.”

“I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Homes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V.R. done in bullet pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.”

“My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.”