Quote

It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?

Arthur Conan Doyle

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Arthur Conan Doyle
Age: 71 †
Born: 1859
Born: May 22
Died: 1930
Died: July 7
Crime Writer
Essayist
Novelist
Physician
Physician Writer
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Sir A. Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan
Sir Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Always
Hold
Effect
Never
Mistake
Seemed
Littles
Mistakes
Striven
Little
Consequence
Accuracy
Matter
Matters
Detail
Writing
Reader
Readers
Made
Effects
Dramatic
Long
Produce
Details

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You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
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It is quite a three-pipe problem.
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Now, Watson,” said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?” “If I can be of use.” “Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use and a chronicler still more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.
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Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.
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The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.
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It is with nations as it is with individuals. A book of history is a book of sermons.
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There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.
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[Sherlock Holmes:] The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.
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It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.
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I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
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Several incidents in my life have convinced me of spiritual interposition - of the promptings of some beneficent force outside ourselves, which tries to help us where it can.
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We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the taproom and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous.
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Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never relax your precautions.
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My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.
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Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.
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My dear Watson, said [Sherlock Holmes], I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.
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There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.
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A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament.
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There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.
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While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will be up to, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.
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