My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.

We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.

An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement . . .

The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.

As a rule, said Holmes, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.

We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands.