The Sherlockian Quotes

“Look, I get it. I’m a white, heterosexual man. It’s really easy for me to say, ‘Oh, wow, wasn’t the nineteenth century terrific?’ But try this. Imagine the scene: It’s pouring rain against a thick window. Outside, on Baker Street, the light from the gas lamps is so weak that it barely reaches the pavement. A fog swirls in the air, and the gas gives it a pale yellow glow. Mystery brews in every darkened corner, in every darkened room. And a man steps out into that dim, foggy world, and he can tell you the story of your life by the cut of your shirtsleeves. He can shine a light into the dimness, with only his intellect and his tobacco smoke to help him. Now. Tell me that’s not awfully romantic?”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“In the darkest corner of a darkened room, all Sherlock Homes stories begin. In the pregnant dim of gaslight and smoke, Holmes would sit, digesting the day's papers, puffing on his long pipe, injecting himself with cocaine. He would pop smoke rings into the gloom, waiting for something, anything, to pierce into the belly of his study and release the promise of adventure; of clues to interpret; of, at last he would plead, a puzzle he could not solve. And after each story he would return here, into the dark room, and die day by day of boredom. The darkness of his study was his cage, but also the womb of his genius.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“[On writing more Sherlock Holmes stories.] ‘I don’t care whether you do or not,’ said Bram. ‘But you will, eventually. He’s yours, till death do you part. Did you really think he was dead and gone when you wrote “The Final Problem”? I don’t think you did. I think you always knew he’d be back. But whenever you take up your pen and continue, heed my advice. Don’t bring him here. Don’t bring Sherlock Holmes into the electric light. Leave him in the mysterious and romantic flicker of the gas lamp. He won’t stand next to this, do you see? The glare would melt him away. He was more the man of our time than Oscar was. Or than we were. Leave him where he belongs, in the last days of our bygone century. Because in a hundred years, no one will care about me. Or you. Or Oscar. We stopped caring about Oscar years ago, and we were his bloody *friends.* No, what they’ll remember are the stories. They’ll remember Holmes. And Watson. And Dorian Gray.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“The human mind thrills at few things so much as making connections. Discovering. Solving.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Amazing, really, to think of what a man could achieve with the simple ability to put pen to paper and spin a decent yarn.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“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, The Sherlockian

“Realism, I think, is fleeting. It's the romance that will live forever.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“It takes a shock to the system, doesn't it, to make a man realize what good things he has.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Watson is a cheap, efficient little sod of a literary device. Holmes doesn't need him to solve crimes any more than he needs a ten-stone ankle weight. The audience, Arthur. The audience needs Watson as an intermediary, so that Holmes's thoughts might be forever kept just out of reach. If you told stories from Holmes's perspective, everyone would know what the bleeding genius was thinking the whole time. They'd have the culprit fingered on page one.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“There is an undeniable exhilaration in moment of even the smallest discovery”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“On Westminster Bridge, Arthur was struck by the brightness of the streetlamps running across like a formation of stars. They shone white against the black coats of the marching gentlefold and fuller than the moon against the fractal spires of Westminster. They were, Arthur quickly realized, the new electric lights, which the city government was installing, avenue by avenue, square by square, in place of the dirty gas lamps that had lit London's public spaces for a century. These new electric ones were brighter. They were cheaper. They required less maintenance. And they shone farther into the dime evening, exposing every crack in the pavement, every plump turtle sheel of stone underfoot. So long to the faint chiaroscuro of London, to the ladies and gentlemen in black-on-black relief. So long to the era of mist and carbonized Newcastle coal, to the stench of the Blackfriars foundry. Welcome to the cleasing glare of the twentieth century.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Murder was so trivial in the stories Harold loved. Dead bodies were plot points, puzzles to be reasoned out. They weren't brothers. Plot points didn't leave behind grieving sisters who couldn't find their shoes.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Love grew docile with age, like a faithful hound. It became precious and prized, locked away from the world like a jewelry box. Love grew commendable dependable-love was eggs, love was ham, love was the morning paper.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Harold had become, over the past week, a connoisseur of silences. He was an expert at differentiating the particulars; was this a Tranquil Silence, marked by slow sighs and peaceful smiles? Or was it a Tired Silence, marked by ornery chair shifting? Or a Tense Silence, full of tight breaths and cautious glances?”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Paranoid theorizing was too easy, too emotionally satisfying.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Gray fall light came through the nine square glass panes. On days like this, the strips of white wood that separated the glass seemed brighter to the eye than did the window light.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“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, The Sherlockian

“The bar was crowded with theorizing Sherlockians, who in the absence of any actual evidence had created grand machinations to explain the crime. Minor points of canonical disagreement became reasons for brutal murder. Some tried to piece together their theories in small groups, hoping that with enough brainpower and expertise they might arrive at a solution. Others jumped straight over the “investigation” phase and landed square at the end of the story they were creating, instantly accusing the man across the table of some vile treachery. And, moreover, actually employing phrases like “vile treachery” in doing so. Everyone was a suspect. But at the world’s largest Sherlockian gathering, everyone was a detective as well.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Arthur narrowly avoided tripping over his own skirt as he hurried out of the ladies’ powder room in full pursuit.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Love grew commendably dependable - love was eggs, love was ham, love was the morning paper.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Arthur had never challenged a man to a duel, but in this moment he understood the magnificent reasonableness of the tradition. It was either that or slugging him outright this very second, which didn't seem nearly so gentlemanly.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“-Acho que adoro a ideia de os problemas terem soluções. Acho que é esse o atrativo das histórias de mistério, sejam de Holmes ou de qualquer outro. Nessas histórias vivemos num mundo compreensível. Vivemos num local onde para cada problema há uma solução, e, se formos suficientemente inteligentes, conseguimos resolve-los.
-Em oposição a...?
-Em oposição a um mundo aleatório. Onde a violência e a morte são acontecimentos fortuitos...imprevisíveis e imparáveis...”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“What an imprecise science was medicine. It was more an art than was fiction.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“A vice is a thing which may be applauded in moderation but becomes horrific in overuse.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Let’s be honest— I think one of you people did this. I think one of your giddy, delusional pals killed Cale and stole my diary. Probably for some obsessive, arcane, and pointless reason. The twisted tosser is most likely building a shrine to the thing right now, praying to it like a dusty Ganesha. I’m going to need someone who is—how shall I put this?–similarly disposed in order to get the diary back.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Arthur looked deeply into the boy’s clear blue eyes and scanned the contours of his handsome face. Arthur could hear something, faintly, in the distance. A rushing sound. A crash of water against rock. He wasn’t sure if it was real or not, but he heard it all the same. Torrents of water rushing over a cliff. He tuned his ears to the noise and recognized the tone. He steadied his hand and listened to the sound, from the back of his mind, of the Reichenbach Falls.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“Women now seek to involve themselves in the life of their government because their government has involved itself in their lives!”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“telegram.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian

“I think I love the idea that problems have solutions. I think that‘s the appeal of mystery stories, whether they‘re Holmes or someone else. In those stories we live in an understandable world. We live in a place where every problem has a solution, and if we were only smart enough, we could figure them out.”
― Graham Moore, The Sherlockian