Conan Detective Quotes & Sayings

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

To keep believing in life, until you're sure of death, it's the way a detective should be. - Kogoro Mouri, Detective Conan — Gosho Aoyama

He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and that may come in time. — Arthur Conan Doyle

You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?"
"Yes, he did."
"When did he say this?"
"When he left me."
"Did he say anything more?"
"He mentioned his name."
Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me.
"Oh, he mentioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?"
"His name," said the cabman, "was Mr. Sherlock Holmes. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I mean really: If even Conan Doyle hungered to shove Holmes off a tall cliff, surely a young female of obvious intelligence would have brained the detective on first sight. — Laurie R. King

When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level of his own eyes. — Arthur Conan Doyle

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work. — Arthur Conan Doyle

All knowledge comes useful to the detective," remarked Holmes. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its teacher. — Arthur Conan Doyle

A strange enigma is man — Arthur Conan Doyle

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE — Arthur Conan Doyle

Flowers are fragile and ephemeral ... Even if you meant to protect them with a surrounding fence from wind and rain, they would die without sunlight ... and a spindly fence has no power against a strong wind. - Haibara Ai — Gosho Aoyama

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

A detective who uses his deductive powers to corner a suspect and then does nothing to stop them from committing suicide is no better than a murderer himself. - Kudo Shinichi — Gosho Aoyama

Sure there are times when one cries with acidity,
'Where are the limits of human stupidity?'
Here is a critic who says as a platitude
That I am guilty because 'in gratitude
Sherlock, the sleuth-hound, with motives ulterior,
Sneers at Poe's Dupin as "very inferior".'
Have you not learned, my esteemed communicator,
That the created is not the creator?
As the creator I've praised to satiety
Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety,
And have admitted that in my detective work
I owe to my model a deal of selective work.
But is it not on the verge of inanity
To put down to me my creation's crude vanity?
He, the created, would scoff and would sneer,
Where I, the creator, would bow and revere.
So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle:
The doll and its maker are never identical. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I don't take much stock of detectives in novels - chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not business. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It's the Baker Street division of the detective police force ... There's more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than out of a dozen of the force,' Holmes remarked. 'The mere sight of an official-looking person seals men's lips. These youngsters, however, go everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all they want is organization. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Have you read Gaboriau's works?" I asked.
"Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?"
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. "Lecoq
was a miserable bungler," he said, in an angry
voice; "he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right. — Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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