Sherlock Holmes Deduction Quotes

True deduction can only be obtained through a certain amount of self annihilation. ~ Joe Riggs

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to read the body language that people's homes present. ~ Jarod Kintz

Is that true? Are you really him?"
"I am afraid I still hold that distinction."
"You are Sherlock Holmes? No, I don't believe it."
"That is quite all right. I scarcely believe it myself. ~ Mitch Cullin

There it was, a sign above a shop that said 221B BAKER STREET. My mouth hung open. I looked around at the ordinary street and the white-painted buildings, looking clean in the morning rain. Where were the fog, the streetlights, the gray atmosphere? The horses pulling carriages, bringing troubled clients to Watson and Holmes? I had to admit I had been impressed with Big Ben and all, but for a kid who had devoured the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, this was really something. I was on Baker Street, driving by the rooms of Holmes and Watson! I sort of wished it were all in black and white and gray, like in the movies. ~ James R. Benn

I reached for the prescription. In a vigorous scrawl, he inked: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, till end of course. ~ Diane Setterfield

No, Sherlock doesn't need another brain. But he could benefit from an extra heart. ~ Guy Adams

...who knows what happened to the other piece?"
"Actually," said Reed. "I think I can guess."
He looked around the table, pleased with the incredulous reactions he'd drawn.
"What are you, Sherlock Holmes or something?" said Jackson.
"I always preferred to see myself as Mycroft, actually. ~ Tom Harper

What Sherlock does is train his mind to remember details, access them as needed, and then spy the hidden pattern in them. It's like spotting animals in clouds: The vapor's the same for everyone, but sometimes you're the only person who can see what's floating there, because you have the proper angle and the imagination to see it. And that's the magic of Sherlock Holmes - his talent for synthesis and discovery. Anyone can train the mind to absorb and recall; ~ Kevin Hearne

That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was evidently a term of reproach."

-Sherlock Holmes- ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

You let their friendship continue because Maisie looks after your son while you're gallivanting around the country disguised as Sherlock Holmes - Uncle Paton Yewbeam ~ Jenny Nimmo

So many of the great detectives that we see on television now owe their origins to Sherlock Holmes. What was very exciting about Rob's pitch and script was that he is a real Holmes-ian expert. He knew all of the mythology. He was very well-versed in the genesis of Holmes and the stories. And the twist with Watson is something we jumped at immediately. It's a very forward-thinking way of doing the show. ~ Nina Tassler

The possible, as it was presented in her Health textbook (a mathematical progression of dating, "career," marriage, and motherhood), did not interest Harriet. Of all the heroes on her list, the greatest of them all was Sherlock Holmes, and he wasn't even a real person. Then there was Harry Houdini. He was the master of the impossible; more importantly, for Harriet, he was a master of escape. No prison in the world could hold him: he escaped from straitjackets, from locked trunks dropped in fast rivers and from coffins buried six feet underground.

And how had he done it? He wasn't afraid. Saint Joan had galloped out with the angels on her side but Houdini had mastered fear on his own. No divine aid for him; he'd taught himself the hard way how to beat back panic, the horror of suffocation and drowning and dark. Handcuffed in a locked trunk in the bottom of a river, he squandered not a heartbeat on being afraid, never buckled to the terror of the chains and the dark and the icy water; if he became lightheaded, for even a moment, if he fumbled at the breathless labor before him– somersaulting along a river-bed, head over heels– he would never come up from the water alive.

A training program. This was Houdini's secret. ~ Donna Tartt

Come, Watson, come!" he cried. The game is afoot. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

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

...but wasn't everyone in England supposed to be a detective? Wasn't every crime, no matter how complex, solved in a timely fashion by either a professional or a hobbyist? That's the impression you get from British books and TV shows. Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hetty Wainthropp, Inspector George Gently: they come from every class and corner of the country. There's even Edith Pargeter's Brother Cadfael, a Benedictine monk who solved crimes in twelfth-century Shrewsbury. No surveillance cameras, no fingerprints, not even a telephone, and still he cracked every case that came his way. ~ David Sedaris

The period after the First World War was an extremely different time, so that Sherlock Holmes would have been a different person following 1918 than he was during the Victorian era. ~ Laurie R. King

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

I have been very interested in the number of kids who have read the Sherlock Holmes books after reading the Mary Russell books. That's great. That's more or less how I rediscovered the Holmes books. ~ Laurie R. King

She was as good as she was beautiful and as intelligent as she was good. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Lucas kicked back in his chair, and thought, Let's go to Sherlock Holmes. When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever was left, however improbable, must be the truth. Or something like that. ~ John Sandford

There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible, ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

We are in Buckingham Palace, the very heart of the British nation. Sherlock Holmes, put your trousers on! ~ Mycroft Holmes

My friend's wiry arms were around me and he was leading me to the chair.
"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake say that you're not hurt!"
It was worth a wound -it was worth many wounds- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay beyond that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I half expected to find Sherlock Holmes thumb wrestling with Jane Austen in the corner. ~ Rachel Cohn

My dear Watson," said [Sherlock Holmes], "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley's No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Moriarty: ... everything I have to say has already crossed your mind. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exagerate one's own powers. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Like all Holmes' reasoning, the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. Dr. Watson, speaking of Sherlock Holmes. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I'm living in a world of goldfish. ~ Mycroft Holmes

By all means."
"The first three sensible words that you have uttered since you entered this room, Watson ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

let me put on my Sherlock Holmes deer-stalker hat and think why else a junkie might be shivering! ~ Paul Grimsley

I've often wished that I had some suave and socially acceptable hobby that I could fall back on in times like this. You know, play the violin (or was it the viola) like Sherlock Holmes, or maybe twiddle away on the pipe organ like the Disney version of Captain Nemo. But I don't. I'm sort of the arcane equivalent of a classic computer geek. I do magic, in one form or another, and that's pretty much it. I really need to get a life, one of these days ~ Jim Butcher

I'm told that Sherlock Holmes never said, "Elementary, my dear Watson" (at least in the Arthur Conan Doyle books) Jimmy Cagney never said, "You dirty rat"; and Humphrey Bogart never said, "Play it again, Sam." But they might as well have, because these apocrypha have firmly insinuated themselves into popular culture. ~ Carl Sagan

That's," I say. My words are all tangled up. "That's. Insane. You're insane."
"I prefer the term brilliant. ~ Eva Morgan

In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test myself. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I love Sherlock Holmes, but I love any of these old stories where the writer was paid by the word, so the adventures just continue forever. They are almost like they were meant to be read out loud. ~ Biz Stone

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent solution. Would you
care to try it?"
"No, indeed," I answered brusquely. "My constitution has not got
over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra
strain upon it."
He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he
said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find
it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the
mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I must admit watching the great mind of Sherlock Holmes struggle to ask even a single question was perhaps the best part of that wretched day. Other than the kiss itself. I caught my finger touching my lips and turned my back to him, looking over my shoulder briefly to say, "Looked like you needed a distraction. ~ Heather W. Petty

Mr. Sherlock Holmes ... was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle