It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.

Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?

The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.

What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done?