Quotes about Mystery

It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.

WATSON: Then you are yourself inclining to the supernatural explanation.      HOLMES: if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct, and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.

You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist out of stories.

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

Look at you. Why is the only woman you ever cared about a world-class criminal - are you a masochist?

Yes, the setting (Dartmoor) is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men. Sherlock Holmes

One other thing, Lestrade," he added, turning round at the door: "'Rache,' is the German for 'revenge;' so don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel." With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him.

A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap.

I don't take much stock of detectives in novels - chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not business.

How long is this to last? asked the inspector finally. And what is it we are watching for? I have no more notion than you how long it is to last, Holmes answered with some asperity. If criminals would always schedule their movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of us.

The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact—of absolute undeniable fact—from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn and what are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns.

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.