Arthur Doyle Quotes & Sayings

Conan Doyle deluded a century of readers into thinking we're all deductive geniuses. — Rob Thomas

As I turned away, I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world.
- Watson. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) stories were great, for one. The thing that makes him a remarkable character is how he can withstand all of these different interpretations and different styles and, that's what makes a classic character a classic character; they keep coming back and you see them in a new way every time. — Laura Linney

I reached for the prescription. In a vigorous scrawl, he inked: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, till end of course. — Diane Setterfield

I suppose I'm the only person who remembers one of the most exciting of his ballets-it's the fruit of an unlikely collaboration between Nijinsky on the one hand and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the other. — Alan Bennett

It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle. — Frederick Buechner

Why, of course, if the reader were smart enough, he could figure the whole thing through after just the first few pages! But in his heart Arthur knew that his readers didn't really want to win. They wanted to test their wits against the author at full pitch, and they wanted to lose. To be dazzled. — Graham Moore

Miss Fields," said a servant, stepping into the room and closing the door, "There is a visitor for you. Are you in?"
Clare blinked. "Yes, obviously."
"Ah. Miss Fields, I should advise
you may be in without being 'in', if you prefer," he said, offering her a tray. There was a calling card on it; Arthur Conan Doyle, Edinburgh. — Sam Starbuck

I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of daily life. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I used to joke that I came to England - not to the U.S. where most Koreans go - because I like Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. — Ha-Joon Chang

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. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I had no idea that such individuals existed outside of stories. A STUDY IN SCARLET, SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE — Brittany Cavallaro

Everyone who writes in the sub-genre of Victorian mystery stands in [Sir Arthur Conan] Doyle's shadow. — Will Thomas

Murder was so trivial in the stories Harold loved. Dead bodies were plot points, puzzles to be reasoned out. They weren't brothers. Plot points didn't leave behind grieving sisters who couldn't find their shoes. — Graham Moore

He is not a man that is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him." STAMFORD, DESCRIBING SHERLOCK HOLMES TO DR. WATSON, IN SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, A STUDY IN SCARLET — Adam S. McHugh

Arthur Conan Doyle was entranced by the notion of a brilliant detective who can deduce everything a stranger has been up to from the merest clue, and yet can't have a trusting relationship with his closest friend. — Rafael Yglesias

Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I'm told that Sherlock Holmes never said, "Elementary, my dear Watson" (at least in the Arthur Conan Doyle books) Jimmy Cagney never said, "You dirty rat"; and Humphrey Bogart never said, "Play it again, Sam." But they might as well have, because these apocrypha have firmly insinuated themselves into popular culture. — Carl Sagan

In one of the earlier Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle (not yet a Sir) made an observation on logical deduction. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
There is, however, a specific flaw in that maxim. It assumes people can recognize the difference between what is impossible and what they believe is impossible. — Peter Clines

It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild and menacing. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? — Arthur Conan Doyle

Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I think I read too much Arthur Conan Doyle when I was young and got this idea that a gentleman should know a lot about one thing and plenty about most everything else. — John Darnielle

And he has guns and dogs that would make the Hound of Baskervilles seem like a bleeding Pekinese. — David Baldacci

Prescription: 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, til end of course. — Diane Setterfield

A strange enigma is man — Arthur Conan Doyle

I consider a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. — Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Houdini, the magician who debunked magic, could not bear to see the great rationalist [Arthur Conan] Doyle enchanted by ghosts and frauds. And so he did what any friend would: He set out to prove spiritualism false and rob his friend Doyle of the only comforting fiction that was keeping him sane. It was the least he could do. — John Hodgman

I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.

---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — Donna Cummins

In the darkest corner of a darkened room, all Sherlock Homes stories begin. In the pregnant dim of gaslight and smoke, Holmes would sit, digesting the day's papers, puffing on his long pipe, injecting himself with cocaine. He would pop smoke rings into the gloom, waiting for something, anything, to pierce into the belly of his study and release the promise of adventure; of clues to interpret; of, at last he would plead, a puzzle he could not solve. And after each story he would return here, into the dark room, and die day by day of boredom. The darkness of his study was his cage, but also the womb of his genius. — Graham Moore

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle conceived Sherlock Holmes, why didn't he give the famous consulting detective a few more quirks: a wooden leg, say, and an Oedipus complex? Well, Holmes didn't need many physical tics or personality disorders; the very concept of a consulting detective was still fresh and original in 1887. — Christopher Fowler

One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott's heroes still may strut, Dickens's delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray's worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated. — Arthur Conan Doyle

He always thought that Touie's long illness would somehow prepare him for her death. He always imagined that grief anf guilt, if they followed, would be more clear-edged, more defined, more finite. Instead they seem like weather, like clouds constantly re-forming into new shapes, blown by nameless, unidentifiable winds. — Julian Barnes

From the vantage of the early twenty-first century, it might be more accurate to say, with no disrespect, that Arthur Conan Doyle originated Sherlock Holmes. The rest of us, obviously, aren't yet finished creating him. — Zach Dundas

So it was, my dear Watson, that at two o'clock today I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which he has so often adorned.
- Sherlock Holmes. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Richard put away the Narnia books, convinced, sadly, that they were an allegory; that an author (whom he had trusted) had been attempting to slip something past him. He had had the same disgust with the Professor Challenger stories, when the bull-necked old professor became a convert to Spiritualistm; it was not that Richard had any problems believing in ghosts - Richard believed, with no problems or contradictions, in everything - but Conan Doyle was preaching, and it showed through the words. Richard was young, and innoncent in his fashion, and believed that authors should be trusted, and that there should be nothing hidden beneath the surface of a story. — Neil Gaiman

On westminster Bridge, Arthur was struck by the brightness of the streetlamps running across like a formation of stars. They shone white against the black coats of the marching gentlefold and fuller than the moon against the fractal spires of Westminster. They were, Arthur quickly realized, the new electric lights, which the city government was installing, avenue by avenue, square by square, in place of the dirty gas lamps that had lit London's public spaces for a century. These new electric ones were brighter. They were cheaper. They required less maintenance. And they shone farther into the dime evening, exposing every crack in the pavement, every plump turtle sheel of stone underfoot. So long to the faint chiaroscuro of London, to the ladies and gentlemen in black-on-black relief. So long to the era of mist and carbonized Newcastle coal, to the stench of the Blackfriars foundry. Welcome to the cleasing glare of the twentieth century. — Graham Moore