The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.

I have taken to living by my wits.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

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".

There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.

His sanguine spirit turns every firefly into a star.

Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either.