“Only after a while did it occur to me (in spite of the chilly silence which surrounded me) that my story was not of the tragic sort, but rather of the comic variety.At any rate that afforded me some comfort.”

“On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.”

“It occurred to me that there was a story behind the scar -- maybe not as dramatic as the story of my wrists, but a story nonetheless -- and the fact that everyone had a story behind some mark on their inside or outside suddenly exhausted me, the gravity of all those untold pasts.”

“I always feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me.”

“Give me a house furnished with books rather than furniture! Both, if you can, but books at any rate!”

“Swimming is normal for me. I'm relaxed. I'm comfortable, and I know my surroundings. It's my home.”