They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

Be the light. Be the love. Not to one or two selectively, but to each person who crosses your path today and every day.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.

Adolescence is about digging out the iron inside irony.

Chicago has a strange metaphysical elegance of death about it.

I can pretty much live without fast food. I haven't eaten McDonald's in so long, but it's okay.

This mother needs happy, reputable children, and that one needs unhappy ones: otherwise she cannot show her kindness as a mother.

Any regeneration project that fails to put environmental and social benefits at its very heart is unlikely to achieve anything more than a very short-lived spasm of spurious prosperity

Silence fertilizes the deep place where personality grows. A life with a peaceful center can weather all storms.

A weird thing happens when you're taken out of your normal clothing and put into USA gear.