Doyle Quotes & Sayings

We can't do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes," said he. "No wonder you get results that are beyond us. But some of these days you'll go too far, and you'll find yourself and your friend in trouble." "For England, home and beauty - eh, Watson? Martyrs on the altar of our country. — Arthur Conan Doyle

In the ghost house in the last days of the accident season, we were never going to die. — Moira Fowley-Doyle

I would go into the darkness with you, but you won't come into the light with me. — Catherine Doyle

THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES — Arthur Conan Doyle

conscience swelled nightly — Arthur Conan Doyle

I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom."
"Excellent!" I cried.
"Elementary," said he. "It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbour, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader. — Arthur Conan Doyle

So as I'm walking up and down the grocery aisles, I notice this distinct, mildewy, putrid odor following me. And I keep looking around for the responsible party, until I discover that she is me. I stink. When I get home, Craig rolls out of bed to help me with the groceries and I say "Honey, smell me. I stink." And he sniffs my shirt and says without surprise, "Yes, you do." And I say "Well, what IS that? It's disgusting." And he says the following:
"It's mildew. All our clothes smell like that. We always stink." I'll just give you a few seconds to digest that information. I know I needed a little time. "WHAT? WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME, HUSBAND?" "I was scared to tell you. You get sensitive about ... . housekeeping stuff." "Oh. So let me clarify here. You'd rather reek all day at work and allow Chase to be THE STINKY KID IN CLASS than risk me getting mad?
"Yes. Yes, I would. Definitely. — Glennon Doyle Melton

I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, or how lonely the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland — Arthur Conan Doyle

When you go card dead its torture just sitting there. — Doyle Brunson

A conjurer gets no credit once he has explained his trick; — Arthur Conan Doyle

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Sometimes I think that it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind which makes him think that all this stage was erected for him to strut upon. — Arthur Conan Doyle

My line of thoughts about dogs is analogous. A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty. — Arthur Conan Doyle

There's no life like the life I've lived. You're free like a cloud floating up in the sky. — Doyle Brunson

Being human in a world with no tolerance for humanity felt like a setup, a game I couldn't win. But instead of understanding that there might be something wrong with the world, I decided there was something wrong with me. — Glennon Doyle Melton

His eyes kindled and a slight flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an instant the veil had lifted upon his keen, intense nature, but for an instant only. When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. — Arthur Conan Doyle

On a clear day the Oregon coast is the most beautiful place on earth - clear and crisp and clean, a rich green in the land and a bright blue in the sky, the air fat and salty and bracing, the ocean spreading like a grin. Brown pelicans rise and fall in their chorus lines in the wells of the waves, cormorants arrow, an eagle kingly queenly floats south high above the water line. — Brian Doyle

It was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with less alert intelligences than his own. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Watson,' said he, 'if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you. — Arthur Conan Doyle

What can I, as a neighbor, do to help level the playing field? — Glennon Doyle Melton

It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves. — Arthur Conan Doyle

He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?'
'No, I have not.'
'Well, well, such is fame! — Arthur Conan Doyle

Make the matter even more terrible than the truth — Arthur Conan Doyle

I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to be entirely trusted, - not the best of them. — Arthur Conan Doyle

You have to turn your head to see peripheral miracles. — Glennon Doyle Melton

That's the thing about parenting: anxious if you do, anxious if you don't. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him: but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting- room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Let me say right here, Mr. Holmes, that money is nothing to me in this case. You can burn it if it's any use in lighting you to the truth. This woman is innocent and this woman has to be cleared, and it's up to you to do it. Name your figure!
My professional charges are upon a fixed scale, I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The weak man becomes strong when he has nothing, for then only can he feel the wild, mad thrill of despair. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week."
"Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigor. — Arthur Conan Doyle

She removed the shining black disk from its sleeve, holding it by the edges. After she placed it on the turntable and set the arm into motion, she adjusted the volume on the amplifier, flooding the room with sound. She closed her eyes and began to sway to the music. She could almost feel Clive's arms guiding her, as he had done so many times over the course of their lives together.
(from Independence Day) — Ken Doyle

There is nothing like first-hand evidence. — Arthur Conan Doyle

No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so. — Arthur Conan Doyle

And meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope that the light of truth is breaking through — Arthur Conan Doyle

The tear in my world is getting bigger. Soon it'll blow the whole universe apart. — Moira Fowley-Doyle

We begin to understand that to coparent is to one day look up and notice that you are on a roller coaster with another human being. You are in the same car, strapped down side by side and you can never, ever get off. There will never be another moment in your lives when your hearts don't rise and fall together, when your minds don't race and panic together, when your stomachs don't churn in tandem, when you stop seeing huge hills emerge in the distance and simultaneously grab the side of the car and hold on tight. No one except for the one strapped down beside you will ever understand the particular thrills and terrors of your ride. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Having something to say and no one to hear it is so lonely. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Gone to the nearest public-house. That is the centre of country gossip. They would have told you every name, from the master to the scullery-maid. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Who are you, then?" "My name is Sherlock Holmes." "Good Lord!" "You have heard of me, I see. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Is that Eduardo Lucas of Godolphin Street?" "Yes." "You will not see him." "Why not?" "He was murdered in his house last night." My friend has so often astonished me in the course of our adventures that it was with a sense of exultation that I realized how completely I had astonished him. — Arthur Conan Doyle

He [Professor Moriarty] is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. — Arthur Conan Doyle

This is not the time for humbugs, Watson! — Arthur Conan Doyle

When I was coming up through the ranks, not that many people carried a lot money of money on them. This was before checks and credit cards. — Doyle Brunson

Commonplace," said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I live on an island called Ireland where most of the music is shite. I grew up listening to "Danny Boy"; I grew up hating Danny Boy, and all his siblings and his granny. "The pipes, the pipes are caw-haw-hawing." Anything with pipes or fiddles or even - forgive me, Paul - banjos, I detested. Songs of loss, of love, of going across the sea; songs of defiance and rebellion - I vomited on all of them. — Roddy Doyle

Recognising, as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe
"
"Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?" Asked Holmes, with some asperity.
"To the man of precised, scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly."
"Then had you not better consult him?"
"I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently
"
"Just a little," said Holmes. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The supreme gift of an artist is the knowledge of when to stop. — Arthur Conan Doyle

That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was evidently a term of reproach."

-Sherlock Holmes- — Arthur Conan Doyle

The messiest parts of our lives are also the most beautiful parts of our lives. — Glennon Doyle Melton

you know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick and if I show too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all." -Sherlock Holmes — Arthur Conan Doyle

Pippa's laugh is bitter, tinged with tears. 'Ha! Why do girls think being beautiful will solve every problem? Being beautiful just creates problems. It's a misery. I wish I were someone else. — Libba Bray

To begin at the beginning. — Arthur Conan Doyle

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

And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy. When I tell my own story I have no such aid. — Arthur Conan Doyle

And you're kind of like a snowflake.'
Oh, Jesus Christ.
He masked his fleeting surprise with a quirked eyebrow. 'Excuse me?'
'Nothing,' I said quickly. 'I didn't say anything.'
'No, no,' he said, rounding on me so his face was too close, his eyes too searing, his smile too irritating. 'I'm a snowflake, am I? — Catherine Doyle

There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy. — Arthur Conan Doyle

In shape they were like horrible toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal animals save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. We now stood amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved. — Arthur Conan Doyle

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed when we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers. — Arthur Conan Doyle

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

THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ — Arthur Conan Doyle

Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools. — Arthur Conan Doyle

the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, — Arthur Conan Doyle

Stephens resumed speaking as the crowd quieted. He referred to one final "improvement" the Confederate Constitution had introduced, a brief but crucial clause that banned forever any "bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves." "The new Constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions - African slavery as it exists among us - the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization." This question, Stephens baldly admitted, "was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."20 Stephens then referenced — Don H. Doyle

I followed you.'
I saw no one.'
That is what you may expect to see when I follow you. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Defrosting is excruciatingly painful. You have been numb for so long. As feeling comes back to your soul, you start to tingle, and it's uncomfortable and strange. But then the tingles start feeling like daggers. Sadness, loss, fear, anger, anxiety - all of these things that you have been numbing with the booze - you feel them for the first time. And it's horrific at first, to tell you the damn truth. But welcoming the pain and refusing to escape from it is the only way to recovery. You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you have to — Glennon Doyle Melton

I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I will not raise you up and give you a gun. I will not take you shooting and fawn over how great your aim is. I won't tell you how brilliant you can be or how many Marinos you can murder if you really put your mind to it. I won't walk you into danger and clap as you shoot to kill. I will take the gun from you and tell you you're a thousand times better without it. I will always take the gun from you, Sophie. I will always tell you that you don't need it. I will always support you, but I will never support that. Never. — Catherine Doyle

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. — Arthur Conan Doyle

My best film is always my next film. I couldn't make Chungking Express now, because of the way I live and drink I've forgotten how I did it. I don't believe in film school or film theory. Just try and get in there and make the bloody film, do good work and be with people you love. — Christopher Doyle

There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to you sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are and what if you go too far out in the lake and the water is over your head and what if there's a fire or a war?
And you can lie awake at night and worry about these things because it's scary and unpredictable, but it's REAL. It's possible.
-Mackie Doyle, The Replacement — Brenna Yovanoff

Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable. — Arthur Conan Doyle

There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Then, how do you know?" "I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?" "My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. — Arthur Conan Doyle

When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. — Brian Doyle

God approaches us in the disguise of other people. — Glennon Doyle Melton

If the man who observes the myriad stars, and considers that they and their innumerable satellites move in their serene dignity through the heavens, each swinging clear of the other's orbit-if, I say, the man who sees this cannot realise the Creator's attributes without the help of the book of Job, then his view of things is beyond my understanding. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. — Arthur Conan Doyle

My friend, who loved above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented anything which distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet, without a harshness which was foreign to his nature, it was impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the young and beautiful woman — Arthur Conan Doyle

Every day President Bush and Congress refuse to fulfill their obligation to special ed is another day Wisconsin property taxpayers are stuck with the bill. It's unfair, irresponsible and must stop. — Jim Doyle

We need to be Atticus. Hands in our pockets. Calm. Believing. So that our children will look at us and even with a fire raging in front of them, they'll say, "Huh. Guess it's not time to worry yet." Then we'll watch carefully. We'll just watch and wait and believe until God nods and says, "It's time. Tear open that gift, Mama. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Do you think you wear a mask?'

'I'm wearing one right now.' Valentino smiled softly. 'We both are.'

'It's a sad thought.'

'Yes,' he said. 'But sometimes I wonder about the alternative. Imagine if we had no secrets, no respite from the truth. What if everything was laid bare the moment we introduced ourselves? — Catherine Doyle

Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why — Arthur Conan Doyle

There are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Yet birth, and lust, and illness, and death are changeless things, and when one of these harsh facts springs out upon a man at some sudden turn of the path of life, it dashes off for the moment his mask of civilization and gives a glimpse of the stranger and stronger face below. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Brain, character, soul - only as one sees more of life does one understand how distinct is each. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Wherever you go, there you are. Your emptiness goes with you. Maddening. Things that help: writing, reading, water, walks, forgiving myself every other minute, practicing easy yoga, taking deep breaths, and petting my dogs. These things don't fill me completely, but they remind me that it is not my job to fill myself. It's just my job to notice my emptiness and find graceful ways to live as a broken, unfilled human ...
If there's a silver lining to the emptiness, here it is: the unfillable is what brings people together. I've never made a friend by bragging about my strengths, but I've made countless by sharing my weakness and my emptiness. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Why on earth people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange mysteries of modern life. — Arthur Conan Doyle

if a man wants friends be must go among strangers. It's — Arthur Conan Doyle

You know, Watson, I don't mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal.
Sherlock Holmes — Arthur Conan Doyle

Pinner. "'Thank you very much,' said he; 'I fear that I underrated the difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance to me.' "'It took some time,' said I. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles. — Arthur Conan Doyle

The approach to the offices of Girdlestone and Co. was not a very dignified one, nor would the uninitiated who traversed it form any conception of the commercial prosperity of the firm in question. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It's said that only gypsies have the true gift of looking at a person and seeing their future, so I was happy as a red hen when she said a man named Doyle would be loving me for the whole of my life and then some. — Bette Lee Crosby

Good heavens!" cried the Colonel, laughing, "do you mean to say all our sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?" "Speaking professionally, it was admirably done," cried I, looking in amazement at this man who was forever confounding me with some new phase of his astuteness. "It is an art which is often useful, — Arthur Conan Doyle

We'll get the real story when we get to heaven! REFLECTION — Stephen C. Doyle

You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world. My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty. — Arthur Conan Doyle