“The sensible man,’ Crow had said (to Sherlock Holmes), ‘don’t look to confirm what he already knows — he looks to deny it. Finding evidence that backs up your theories ain’t useful, but finding evidence that your theories are wrong is priceless. Never try to prove yourself right — always try to prove yourself wrong instead.”— Andy Lane
“It was quite elementary,’ returned the detective with a languid gesture of one hand.”— Anthony Horowitz
“For the first time in a very many years, he felt the old vexation, the mingled impatience and pleasure at the world’s beautiful refusal to yield up its mysteries without a fight.”— Michael Chabon
“What a lovely thing a rose is!”He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. “There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”— Arthur Conan Doyle