“There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror.”

“Where there is no imagination, there is no horror.”

“It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?”

“If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o’-the-wisps of the imagination.”

“The most common place crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or specific features from which deductions may be drawn”

“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”

“You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”“A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”“You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right.”