“The affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising commencement. You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.”

“I must thank you,' said Sherlock Holmes, 'for calling my attention to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases.”

“I have been mostly dull lately. Like a butter knife. And hoping to find, when called upon, something more in my arsenal than a butter knife. Unless my opponent is actually butter. Then that would be fine. Room temperature butter.”

“To this day, I am amazed at how many of my problems - most of which had nothing to do with drinking, I believed - have become manageable or have simply disappeared since I quit drinking.”

“I remembered how is disheartening and dreadful when you're seeing it for the first time. I thought of my parents and the town where I was born, and suddenly everything around me seemed less real.”

“The more images I gathered from the past, I said, the more unlikely it seemed to me that the past had actually happened in this or that way, for nothing about it could be called normal: most of it was absurd, and if not absurd, then appalling.”