Doyle Quotes

Of course the modern detective story puts off its best tricks till the last, but Doyle always put his best tricks first and that's why they're still the best ones. (Rex Stout)

I love Sherlock Holmes. There's still an awful lot to steal from Conan Doyle. But within a tradition you can work in many different ways.

Henning Mankell

Prescription: 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, til end of course.

Diane Setterfield

It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Frederick Buechner

Mostel: If I appeared there, what if I did an imitation of a butterfly at rest? There is no crime in making anybody laugh. I don't care if you laugh at me. Congressman Jackson: If your interpretation of a butterfly at rest brought any money into the coffers of the Communist Party, you contributed directly to the propaganda effort of the Communist Party. Mostel: Suppose I had the urge to do the butterfly at rest somewhere? Congressman Doyle: Yes, but please, when you have the urge, don't have such an urge to put the butterfly at rest by putting some money in the Communist Party coffers as a result of that urge to put a butterfly at rest.

Zero Mostel

"Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary," murmured Psmith. (Earlier usage of the precise words "Elementary, my dear Watson" has been found in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)

P. G. Wodehouse

The provocation with Holmes is the fact that he's described by Doyle as a man without a heart - all brain... and that's very difficult to play, or even indicate.

Jeremy Brett

The thing is, horror is a big part of 'Sherlock Holmes.' Doyle also wrote a lot of great horror stories, so there's a lot more horror in 'Holmes' that people possibly think of. There's a lot of curses and mysticism and real scares.

Mark Gatiss

I can still remember. I was ill, and I was seven, and my father didn't want me to just read children's books. He came with Conan Doyle. I tried, and I liked it. I think the first I read was 'The Sign of the Four'; 'Study in Scarlet' was the next one. Then I guess I stayed home a few extra days from school to read.

Henning Mankell

I think I read too much Arthur Conan Doyle when I was young, and got this idea that a gentleman should know a lot about one thing and plenty about most everything else.

John Darnielle

Reading O'Rahilly's life of Father William Doyle. I'm surprised this book hasn't left a deeper mark, for it contains - often in parallel terms - the whole teaching of the Little Way which created such a stir in the case of Thérèse. But it seems people prefer to accept such things from a lovely young girl complete with smile, roses and veil. One can't help wondering whether Thérèse would have met with the same enormous response had she been hopelessly ugly - a hunchback with a squint, or old... (Ida Friederike Görres)

It was a stem, like an apple stem, like a cherry stem - a stem attached quite solidly and naturally to one corner of a twenty-dollar bill! He dropped the pile of bills upon the seat and held up the stem and the bill hung from the stem, as if it were growing from the stem, and it was clear to see that the stem not long before had been fastened to a branch, for the mark of recent separation was plainly visible. Doyle whistled softly. A money tree, he thought.

Clifford D. Simak

Please do not strain yourself, Miss Doyle. I won't have my girls going cross-eyed in the name of art.

Libba Bray