How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Story.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Then, how do you know?"
"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?"
"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have been burned had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you deduce it" (Scandal.1.8-10).
"Burned"? What? Watson appears to have just called his best buddy Holmes a witch. But his point is really that Holmes's thought processes are so beyond an ordinary person's that his deductions seem like witchcraft if you don't know his methods. It's like that Arthur C. Clarke quote about all sufficiently advanced technology appearing like magic? For Watson, Holmes's intellect is like a super-advanced machine, a subject of awe and admiration.
Quote #2
My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him (League.156).
Watson's close observation of Holmes's shifting moods proves just how much he admires the guy. But it's also a way of raising our admiration of Holmes through Watson. This passage about Holmes's love of music makes the detective seem like a complex person instead of just a brain on legs – he has thoughts and feelings that we can recognize.
Quote #3
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque (League.159).
Poor Watson, we certainly don't think he's "more dense" than his neighbors. But Holmes is so amazing, says Watson, that even he feels "oppressed" by his stupidity when Holmes is around. Watson repeats this reflection in nearly every story in this collection, subtly underlining for the reader that Holmes is a real cut above ordinary folk in terms of brainpower.
Quote #4
"You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce that the gas is not laid on in his house?"
"One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I see no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with burning tallow – walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in one hand and a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never got tallow-stains from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?"
"Well, it is very ingenious," said I, laughing (Carbuncle.45-7).
This section of deduction belongs to a long chain in which Holmes also reasons that the poor owner of this hat has lost the love of his wife. Besides being a pretty amazing performance of the kind of deductive reasoning Holmes so adores, this scene is also interesting for Watson's frequent expressions of amazement and disbelief. He's basically egging Holmes on, giving him a plot-based reason for why he would be talking through the identity of the owner of an old hat in such detail: Holmes does this because Watson wants him to, because he asks Holmes, "how on earth do you deduce?"
Quote #5
"You must not fear," said he soothingly, bending forward and patting her forearm. "We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see."
"You know me, then?"
"No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station."
The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my companion (Band.12-6).
This scene takes place when Holmes first meets Helen Stoner, the extremely fragile heroine of "The Speckled Band." Her physical expression of surprise at Holmes's deductions helps emphasize how unusual he is. But it also gives the scene a material, realistic quality that Conan Doyle seems to be striving for all the time in these stories.