Sherlock Holmes And John Watson Quotes & Sayings

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

My friend's wiry arms were around me and he was leading me to the chair.
"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake say that you're not hurt!"
It was worth a wound -it was worth many wounds- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay beyond that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. — Arthur Conan Doyle

We weren't Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I was ok with that, I thought. We had things they didn't, too. Like electricity, and refrigerators. And Mario Kart. — Brittany Cavallaro

I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now for lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are splendid. What's that little thing of Chopin's she plays so magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay. Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story ... Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it.'
- Sherlock Holmes on John Watson's "pamphlet", "A Study in Scarlet". — Arthur Conan Doyle

Suddenly the dreamer disappeared, and Holmes, the man of action, sprang from his chair. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Not that Dr Watson wasn't benign - he was one of the best souls in the Empire - but a man didn't get to be her uncle's right-hand man without a good uppercut and the stamina of a draft horse. — Emma Jane Holloway

It is all very well to say that a man is clever, but the reader wants to see examples of it ... — Arthur Conan Doyle

I was forced to agree. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock: You're keeping a SCRAPBOOK. Only old ladies and pre-pubescent girls keep scrapbooks, John.
John: It's not a scrapbook, Sherlock. I'm collecting papers relevant to the cases. It helps me remember the details. And it was locked away in my desk drawer.
Sherlock: The lock on your desk drawer was insulting me with its pretense at security. — Guy Adams

I am lost without my Boswell.
[Sherlock Holmes on Dr. Watson.] — Arthur Conan Doyle

More accurately, on the bed and on the table lay various pieces of what had once been a body.
Holmes was leaning with his back against the wall, his countenance deathly white. "The door was open," he said incongruously. "I was passing by, and the door was open."
"Holmes," I whispered in horror.
"The door was open," he said once more, and then buried his face in his hands. — Lyndsay Faye

I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Homes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V.R. done in bullet pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Your father may never have produced one of those stuffy tomes we call great literature, but he left the world a substantial collection of delightful adventure stories. — David E. Fessenden

John [to Sherlock]: You're incredible. A genius. A good friend. And a lousy driver. — Guy Adams

John H. Watson might have been many things - a doctor, a storyteller, and by most accounts a kind and decent man-but he clearly wasn't a zoologist. There's no such thing as a swamp adder. And the idea that Sherlock Holmes deduced its existence from a saucer of milk is ridiculous- snakes have zero interest in milk. They also can't hear anything but vibrations, so they wouldn't hear a whistle. But they do breathe, so a snake couldn't survive in a locked safe. — Brittany Cavallaro

Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. — Arthur Conan Doyle

No, the events which I am about to describe were simply too monstrous, too shocking to appear in print. They still are. It is no exaggeration to suggest that they would tear apart the entire fabric of society and, particularly at a time of war, this is something I cannot risk. — Anthony Horowitz

Speaking professionally, it was admirably done."
-John H. Watson-
-The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes- — Arthur Conan 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

One other thing, Lestrade," he added, turning round at the door: "'Rache,' is the German for 'revenge;' so don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel." With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him. — Arthur Conan Doyle

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

He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer- excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained observer to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I bet it was also the triumphant Aha! and not the truth itself that had fueled all those famous literary detectives I knew not much about except their names - Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Joe and Frank Hardy. I felt like yelling something celebratory on my way home, something like, Yeah! or Fuck, yeah! just like Marlowe would have yelled, just like the Hardys would have yelled, and maybe Holmes, too, although maybe that's why he kept Watson around; to tell Holmes to simmer down and not get too far ahead of himself. — Brock Clarke