uncommon occurrences Quotes

I tell people: if it's in the news, don't worry about it, because by definition, news is something that almost never happens.

Only the rare expands our minds, only as we shudder in the face of a new force do our feelings increase. Therefore the extraordinary is always the measure of all greatness. And the creative element always remains the value superior to all others and the mind superior to our minds.

Perfect courage and utter cowardice are two extremes which rarely occur.

Say what you like, but such things do happen - not often, but they do happen.

Let not a god interfere unless where a god's assistance is necessary. [Adopt extreme measures only in extreme cases.]

There is always something particularly delightful about exceptions to a rule.

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.

When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog, that is news.

I'm in the storytelling business, and so you're always drawn to the unusual. And early on, I discovered that's the easiest way to tell stories... If you come up through a newspaper as I did, your whole goal is to get a story on the front page, and you only get something on the front page if it's unusual.