“Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.”

“It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.”

“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.”

“This room is not well adapted as a cell, and Mr. Patrick Cairns occupies too large a portion of our carpet.”

“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”

“(...) We are bound to go.”My answer was to rise from the table.“You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go.”He sprang up and shook me by the hand.“I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more.”

“It is more than possible; it is probable.”