Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

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.'

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

I think like a detective.

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.

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.

You know my methods. Apply them.

Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of Mrs. Armstrong's mother, the detective methods of Mr. Hardman, the suggestion of Mr. MacQueen that Ratchett himself destroyed the charred note we found, Princess Dragomiroff's Christian name, and a grease spot on a Hungarian passport.

We will pursue every factor, every element, every second of the timeline, of the final hours of Maurice's life. We will pursue that relentlessly. That will be our quest from now on.

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.

I think seeing some of the past can be helpful, especially if you're into crime solving.

We may either proceed from principles to facts, or recede from facts to principles.

Part of the way that I work is to observe.

Forensics I've always found absolutely fascinating. Anything to do with clues. And checking things out and solving.

Take the perspective of a journalist or scientist. Really study what's around you. What are people wearing, what do the interiors of buildings look like, what noises do you hear? If you bring your analytical powers to bear, you can make almost anything interesting.

It's very questionable, and we will pursue every factor, every element, every second of the timeline, of the final hours of Maurice's life. We will pursue that relentlessly. That will be our quest from now on.

In a crime story, the details become tremendously important - where the staircase was in relation to the bed, for example.

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.

Attention to detail - Sherlock certainly has that, and my memory is pretty good - but not as good as his.

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 love the idea that if you watch something twice, three times, four times, you'll continuously notice new things.

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.

To paint things as they are requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy.

Poirot said placidly, “One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think. It is this – ” he tapped his egg-shaped head – “this, that functions!