“You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
—A Study in Scarlet
“Watson, I have always done you an injustice. There are others. What could this NN be? It is at the end of a word. You are aware that Johann Faber is the most common maker’s name. Is it not clear that there is just as much of the pencil left as usually follows the Johann?”
—The Adventure of the Three Students
“I must admit, Watson, that you have some power of selection, which atones for much which I deplore in your narratives. Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations. You slur overwork of the utmost finesse and delicacy, in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct, the reader.”
—The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
“Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one.”
—The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
“Among your many talents dissimulation finds no place.”
—The Adventure of the Dying Detective
“Shall I demonstrate your own ignorance? What do you know, pray, of Tapanuli fever? What do you know of the black Formosa corruption? There are many problems of disease, many strange pathological possibilities, in the East. I have learned so much during some recent researches which have a medico-criminal aspect. It was in the course of them that I contracted this complaint. You can do nothing.”
—The Adventure of the Dying Detective
“I suppose, Watson, we must look upon you as a man of letters. How do you define the word ’grotesque’?”
—The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
“I’ve hardly seen you in the light yet. How have the years used you? You look the same blithe boy as ever.”
—His Last Bow
“On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.”
—The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
“A chaotic case, my dear Watson. It will not be possible for you to present it in that compact form which is dear to your heart. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious persons, and is further complicated by the highly respectable presence of our friend, Scott Eccles, whose inclusion shows me that the deceased Garcia had a scheming mind and a well-developed instinct of self-preservation. It is remarkable only for the fact that amid a perfect jungle of possibilities we, with our worthy collaborator, the inspector, have kept our close hold on the essentials and so been guided along the crooked and winding path. Is there any point which is not quite clear to you?”
—The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
“Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.”
—The Man with the Twisted Lip
“You have a grand gift of silence. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. Ton my word, it is a great thing for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over-pleasant.”
—The Man with the Twisted Lip
“I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted. The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing.”
—The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
“You are like my friend, Dr. Watson, who has a bad habit of telling his stories wrong and foremost. Please arrange your thoughts and let me know, in their due sequence, exactly what those events are which have sent you out unbrushed and unkempt, with dress boots and waistcoat buttoned awry, in search of advice and assistance.”
—The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
“There is an appalling directness about your questions, Watson. They come at me like bullets.”
—The Valley of Fear
“I am lost without my Boswell.”
—A Scandal in Bohemia
“Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is the delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from enclosing cipher and message in the same envelope. Should it miscarry, you are undone.”
—The Valley of Fear
“A very commonplace little murder. You’ve got something better, I fancy. You are the stormy petrel of crime, Watson. What is it?”
—The Naval Treaty
“A touch! A distinct touch! You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humor, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself.”
—The Valley of Fear
“I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.”
—The Hound of the Baskervilles
“I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though I fear that it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you.”
—The Final Problem
“Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department.”
—The Adventure of the Second Stain
“Very sorry to knock you up, Watson, but it’s the common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you.”
—The Adventure of the Speckled Band
“I say, Watson, would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?”
—The Valley of Fear
“If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing—a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.”
—The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
