“I became, in other words, more like Holmes than the man himself: brilliant, driven to a point of obsession, careless of myself, mindless of others, but without the passion and the deep-down, inbred love for the good in humanity that was the basis of his entire career. He loved the humanity that could not understand or fully accept him; I, in the midst of the same human race, became a thinking machine.”

“Stop it!'He relented, so far as he could, stepping forward to take my head into his hands. 'Russell, once, only once, I was taken and suffered for it. Please, my dear wife, believe me, this is not the same situation...'...I turned back to Holmes and hissed, 'If you're wrong, I shall be extremely angry with you.' Then O kissed him hard on the lips, more threat than affection, and let him step back into his cell...'However, Russ? I think that, all in all, given the choice, I prefer you with the hair and without the moustache.”

“But a topee is not a turban, and I had been my teacher's pupil before I became my husband's wife, learning to my bones that half a disguise is none at all...The moment my short-cropped, pomade-sleek, unquestionably masculine hair passed beneath his nose was the closest thing I've ever seen Holmes to fainting dead away.”

“Tell me about yourself, Miss Russell."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.”

“I think very few people are completely normal really, deep down in their private lives. It all depends on a combination of circumstances. If all the various cosmic thingummys fuse at the same moment, and the right spark is struck, there's no knowing what one mightn't do.”

“I would have stolen it for you, had I known you were interested." His voice was muffled by the door to the lumber room down the hallway, and I heard thumps and a crash.I raised my voice a trifle more than mere volume required. "I'm interested because she was. Both of them, come to that--Damian's art is infused with mystic symbols and traditions."Holmes' voice answered two inches away from my ear, making me jerk and spray a handful of maps across the floor. "Religion can be a dangerous thing, it is true," he remarked darkly, and went out again.”