I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. [...] It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. [...] It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.

I have mastered the principles of several religions. They have all shocked me by the violence which I should have to do to my reason to accept the dogmas of any one of them.

“How ever did you see that?” “Because I looked for it.”