Pride is a sweetmeat, to be savoured in small pieces; it makes for a poor feast.

Men do, I've found, accept the most errant nonsense from a well dressed woman

My God...it can think.

It was hypnotic, and then it was unsettling, and finally I became aware of another entity in my universe, sitting on the shore two hundred yards away, smoking a pipe.

But a topee is not a turban, and I had been my teacher's pupil before I became my husband's wife, learning to my bones that half a disguise is none at all...The moment my short-cropped, pomade-sleek, unquestionably masculine hair passed beneath his nose was the closest thing I've ever seen Holmes to fainting dead away.

Most damning of phrases: He meant well.

When you're putting together a story, sometimes you just have to skip over the boring bits.