Everything comes in circles. [...] The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.

Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never relax your precautions.

No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done.

Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

And once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complexity of human life so pletifuly presents.

How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

If in 100 years I am only known as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes then I will have considered my life a failure.