I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of daily life.

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.

Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

No violence, gentlemen — no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!

Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.

I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.