Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.

I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by my wrist and pushed me back into my chair. 'It is both, or none,' said he. 'You may say before this gentleman anything which you may say to me.

Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

We can't command our love, but we can our actions.

Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are few wives having any regard for their husbands who would let any man's spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead body. Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.

I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right.

...while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.