Sherlockian Quotes

“In the darkest corner of a darkened room, all Sherlock Homes stories begin. In the pregnant dim of gaslight and smoke, Holmes would sit, digesting the day's papers, puffing on his long pipe, injecting himself with cocaine. He would pop smoke rings into the gloom, waiting for something, anything, to pierce into the belly of his study and release the promise of adventure; of clues to interpret; of, at last he would plead, a puzzle he could not solve. And after each story he would return here, into the dark room, and die day by day of boredom. The darkness of his study was his cage, but also the womb of his genius.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“No ghosts need apply.

- Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“Amazing, really, to think of what a man could achieve with the simple ability to put pen to paper and spin a decent yarn.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Some are given to displaying their lives, every intimate detail of them, for others to paw through. And yet, no one can ever reveal all about himself. Everyone has secrets.”
― Shane Peacock, The Secret Fiend

“Why, of course, if the reader were smart enough, he could figure the whole thing through after just the first few pages! But in his heart Arthur knew that his readers didn't really want to win. They wanted to test their wits against the author at full pitch, and they wanted to lose. To be dazzled.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Murder was so trivial in the stories Harold loved. Dead bodies were plot points, puzzles to be reasoned out. They weren't brothers. Plot points didn't leave behind grieving sisters who couldn't find their shoes.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“On Westminster Bridge, Arthur was struck by the brightness of the streetlamps running across like a formation of stars. They shone white against the black coats of the marching gentlefold and fuller than the moon against the fractal spires of Westminster. They were, Arthur quickly realized, the new electric lights, which the city government was installing, avenue by avenue, square by square, in place of the dirty gas lamps that had lit London's public spaces for a century. These new electric ones were brighter. They were cheaper. They required less maintenance. And they shone farther into the dime evening, exposing every crack in the pavement, every plump turtle sheel of stone underfoot. So long to the faint chiaroscuro of London, to the ladies and gentlemen in black-on-black relief. So long to the era of mist and carbonized Newcastle coal, to the stench of the Blackfriars foundry. Welcome to the cleasing glare of the twentieth century.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“There is an undeniable exhilaration in moment of even the smallest discovery”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“A mystifying sensation of loneliness shook him. Arthur had been alone before, to be sure, but to be alone while surrounded by people, the one sane man in a mad place - that was loneliness.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Gray fall light came through the nine square glass panes. On days like this, the strips of white wood that separated the glass seemed brighter to the eye than did the window light.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“My companion made a noise that, in an aerated environment, would probably have come out as a weary sigh. 'Honestly, I remember a time when being violated by a monstrosity from the abysmal darkness was something you really had to work at. Young people today have no idea, do they?' She paused. 'That is to say, young people twenty years from the time we've just departed will have no idea, will they?'
    'Tell me about it,' Miss Reef flicked her tail disdainfully.”
― Alexis Hall, The Affair of the Mysterious Letter

“Do we have an actual plan?'
    'Certainly.' She sounded faintly affronted. 'We shall attend the salon in the guise of Mr. Lutrell and his faithful secretary. That's you. Then I'll draw the subject aside in order to ask her some questions about her latest work and use my art, guile, and intense personal charisma to lead her into confessing any role she might have had in the blackmailing of Eirene.'
    'That doesn't sound like a plan, so much as a sequence of conversations with tremendous scope to go wrong.'
    She rose imperiously from the chaise. 'I am the sorceress Shaharazad Hass. I never go wrong. I merely achieve things in a manner I had not intended.”
― Alexis Hall, The Affair of the Mysterious Letter

“The figure in the cloak had turned, waving a fist in the air in a gesture of pure spite. ‘Damn you!’ My whispered curse came as I drew my revolver, pausing only to take aim. Two shots rang out, shattering the very air between us. I could not be sure if the heavy bullets had found their mark; the fiend whirling around behind a chimney-stack a moment after I fired. A groan from the blackness below-it was Holmes!. - John Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders”
― Mark Sohn, Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.

“I am a practitioner of the science of deduction, of using the known facts in a case to unveil the unknown.’ - Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders”
― Mark Sohn, Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.