#doyle

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time. ↗

— Libba Bray

#doyle #gemma #art

A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well. God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen. ↗

— Libba Bray

#gemma-doyle #humor #libba-bray #rebel-angels #business

Houdini, the magician who debunked magic, could not bear to see the great rationalist [Arthur Conan] Doyle enchanted by ghosts and frauds. And so he did what any friend would: He set out to prove spiritualism false and rob his friend Doyle of the only comforting fiction that was keeping him sane. It was the least he could do. ↗

— John Hodgman

#debunking #friendship #harry-houdini #spiritualism #friendship

I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of daily life. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#sherlock-holmes #life

When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#doyle #sherlock-holmes #nature

You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone's. You are a fine physician, Thomas. Why is that not enough?" "Because it isn't," he says with a rare candor. "Only this and the hope of nothing more? A quiet respectability with no true greatness or heroism in it, with only my reputation to recommend me. So you see, Gemma, you are not the only one who cannot rule her own life. ↗

— Libba Bray

#control #gemma-doyle #life #love #responsibility

But Gemma, you could change the world." "That should take far more than my power," I say. "True. But change needn't happen all at once. It can be small gestures." "Moments. Do you understand?" He's looking at me differently now, though I cannot say how. I only know I need to look away... We pass by the pools, where the mud larks sift. And for only a few seconds, I let the magic loose again. "Oi! By all the saints!" a boy cries from the river. "Gone off the dock?" an old woman calls. The mud larks break into cackles. "'S not a rock!" he shouts. He races out of the fog, cradling something in his palm. Curiosity gets the better of the others. They crowd about trying to see. In his palm is a smattering of rubies. "We're rich mates! It's a hot bath and a full belly for every one of us!" Kartik eyes me suspiciously. "That was a strange stroke of good fortune." "Yes it was." "I don't suppose that was your doing." "I'm not sure I don't know what you mean," I say. And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time. ↗

— Libba Bray

#gemma-doyle #kartik #luck #magic #small

I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#sherlock-holmes #the-sign-of-four #materialism

I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#sherlock-holmes #sherlock-holmes

I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#sherlock-holmes #sir-arthur-conan-doyle #the-final-problem #sherlock-holmes