Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

A working detective has no hope of understanding what even experts who devote their lives to the study of criminal psychology can't figure out.

He just waited until I stopped talking and said, 'Jesus, kid, you're almost a detective. All you need now is a gun, a gut, and three ex-wives. So what's your theory?

Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective.

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.

A really good detective never gets married.

I think like a detective.

Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.

I'll always do 'Sherlock' - it's something I'm not going to give up on.

When I was growing up, my stepmother's sister was the chief detective in one of the adjoining towns, so she piqued my interest in crime.

I think Morse's thing about being a poor policeman but a good detective is a very good description of him.

The most successful detectives owe their success to noticing small signs. Scouts are natural detectives and never let the smallest detail escape them. These small things are called by Scouts 'Sign.'

I'm not a great student, so I don't know that I would have been a great detective. Part of my brain sort of works that way, like wanting to figure out puzzles and figure out what happened and why people do the things they do and who they are and how it happened.

There's something wonderful about that sort of Poirot, Agatha Christie-style investigation: cross-questioning all the witnesses and checking their stories, looking for means, motive, and opportunity.

I'm very good at solving mysteries.

Midsomer' is a throwback to the old detective tradition, in which everything happens in the head of one man. Everything depends on his intuition and experience.

We're all amateur investigators. We scan bookshelves, we ogle trinkets left out in the open, we calculate the cost of furniture and study the photographs on display; sometimes we even check out the medicine cabinet.

I could imagine actually being a scientist or a detective, but not a detective who puts his hands into gory, bloody things. But more like someone who figures things out. I like to figure things out.

When I was a kid, what captivated me about detective fiction were the puzzles more than the detectives or their enemies. And as I've gotten older, I see a lot of merit in setting your investigative sights higher than figuring out how someone stole Encyclopedia Brown's bicycle.

I believe that I'm not just a fighter in this game; I love to study the sport. And in studying the sport, I believe I have a good eye for the sport, and I'm able to talk about the sport.

It is quite a three-pipe problem.

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.

I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.

You know my methods. Apply them.

If you are to be Hercule Poirot, you must think of everything.

Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists.