- Dr. John Watson: What delightful little farms these are, don't you agree? Aren't they fresh and beautiful?
- Sherlock Holmes: Do you know, Watson, it is one of the curses of having a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject.
- Dr. John Watson: Well, it doesn't make the scenery any less admirable, does it?
- Sherlock Holmes: You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.
- Dr. John Watson: Good heavens, who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?
- Sherlock Holmes: They always fill me with a sudden horror. It is my belief Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
- [first lines]
- Dr Watson: Something wrong?
- Sherlock Holmes: To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.
- [last lines]
- Dr Watson: [after reading Holmes his account of the case] There, Holmes. Your verdict.
- Sherlock Holmes: An admirable account, Watson.
- Dr Watson: Oh, you don't think I've put "too much colour and life" into it?
- Sherlock Holmes: Oh, my dear friend, I humbly defer such considerations to your excellent literary judgement.
- Dr Watson: [after a pause] Good.
- Mrs. Toller: Mr. Fowler, being a persevering gentleman, as a good sailor should be, blockaded the house.
- Sherlock Holmes: And having met you, succeeded by certain arguments, metallic and otherwise, in convincing you that your interests were the same as his?
- Mrs. Toller: Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman.
- Dr Watson: I wonder what desperate circumstances could occasion such an appeal.
- Sherlock Holmes: I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts as far as we know them.
- Dr Watson: Oh, and which one do you favour, Holmes?
- Sherlock Holmes: At the moment, I have no favourites. Data, data, data! I cannot make bricks without clay!
- Jephro Rucastle: Why do you think I keep that door locked?
- Violet Hunter: I'm sure I don't know.
- Jephro Rucastle: It is to keep people out who have no business there!