Elementary quotes

Sherlock

I've given further consideration to your rebuke regarding my capacity for niceness.

Joan

I didn't mean it as a rebuke. I was trying to have a conversation.

Sherlock

Either way. You have a point. There is unquestionably a certain social utility to being polite. To maintaining an awareness of other people's sensitivities. To exhibiting all the traits that might commonly be grouped under the heading nice.

Joan

I think you'll be surprised how easy it is to earn that designation.

Sherlock

No. I am not a nice man. It's important that you understand that. It's going to save you a great deal of time and effort. There is not a warmer, kinder me waiting to be coaxed out into the light. I am acerbic. I can be cruel. It's who I am. Right to the bottom. I'm neither proud of this, nor ashamed of it. It simply is. And in my work, my nature has been an advantage far more often than it has been a hindrance. I'm not gonna change.

Joan

You already have. You're not the same person I met a year and a half ago. You're--

Sherlock

Good to you? Yeah. For the most part. I consider you to be... exceptional. So I make an exceptional effort to accommodate you. But you must accept that, for as long as you choose to be in my life, there will occasionally be fallout from my behavior. That must be a part of our understanding.

Joan

No one can accept something like that forever.

Sherlock

To thine own self, Watson.

How did you learn about Mr. Dylan's criminal record?

Sherlock

When I learned that James Dylan had sold Rada Hollingsworth her viatical, I did some cursory research into his background, research his employers had apparently neglected to do. That's the beauty of the Internet. Twenty-four-seven access to everything from twerking kittens to criminal records.

Gregson

Give the man a moment, would you? He's a brave and brilliant instrument of justice. All we gotta do is stay out of his way, and he'll lead us right to the truth.

I've known Tommy Gregson a long time. I'm guessing he didn't actually say that.

He may have used different words to make the same point.

Sherlock

[voice-over, in a letter to Moriarty] We have spilled much ink, you and I, in our discussion of human connection, and we're no closer to understanding than we were when our correspondence began. I often feel as if I am standing on one side of a wide chasm, shouting across, and wondering if the response I hear comes from you, or if it is my own voice, echoing back to me. It seems to me, on my side of the canyon, the search for unity with another is the font of much of the world's unhappiness. I watch as Watson, eager as ever to extract some meaning from the prevailing social conventions, endures a series of curated mating rituals. It seems to me that she's incrementally less content each time she returns from one. I conduct myself as though I'm above matters of the heart, chiefly because I have seen them corrode people I respect. But in my candid moments I sometimes wonder if I take the stance I do because "love," for lack of a better word, is a game that I fail to understand, and so I opt not to play. After all, if I truly had the purity of all my convictions, I wouldn't regret so many of the things I've done, nor would I persist against many of my better instincts in this correspondence. I find you a challenge; one that, in spite of all that you've done, continues to stimulate. And so the conversation - futile though it may finally be - continues, and we are left to wonder, have we simply failed to find the answers to the questions that preoccupy us, or can they not be answered at all? Fortunately for both of us, the world always presents the next diversion - the next elaborate distraction - from the problems that vex...

You look a bit tired.

Sherlock

You look a bit evil.

Would you be surprised to learn you've been on my mind, Joan Watson?

Joan

Not really.

I don't typically misread people, but you're more clever than I initially anticipated. More interesting. If you weren't, I would never have been caught.

Joan

I think you give me too much credit.

It's what you crave, is it not? Acknowledgment from a superior mind. Evidence that you matter. Why else pursue a partnership with a man like Sherlock?

Joan

Actually the partnership was his idea. That bothers you, doesn't it?

I confess I don't understand it, but I'm drawn to things I don't understand. Same as Sherlock. Once I've figured you out, I'll move on. Same as Sherlock.

Joan

Is that why you've been writing him? Because you want to... understand him?

Part of it, I suppose.

Joan

And the rest?

What do you think?

Joan

You think you're in love with him. Only you can't be sure, because as much as you claim to know about the world, love is something you don't quite get.

You'd be surprised what I'd do for love.

Joan

Nothing crazy people do surprises me.

I write to Sherlock because he's the only person on the planet I can really talk to. He writes to me because I'm the only one he can talk to. The only one he can ever truly relate to. If you still don't understand that, you will someday. I promise.

Sherlock

Did you say everything you wanted to say today? To Moriarty? That is why you accompanied her to the Fuller residence, is it not? So you would have a private dialogue with her?

Joan

Well, you have been hogging her for the last few months.

Sherlock

I told you. I have merely been--

Joan

Studying her. Right. You have feelings for her, and that is perfectly normal.

Sherlock

I have nothing of the sort.

Joan

Irene was the love of your life. That is why, in spite of everything, you can't quite give her up. I get that. But I also know that you're only gonna get hurt in the long run because there is no Irene. There is only Moriarty. And Moriarty is never gonna change.

Sherlock

[to Joan, re Moriarty] The woman is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma I've had sex with. I would be lying if I said I was the strongest assessor of her motives at this point.

Your letters have meant a great deal to me. I find them influencing my decisions in the most surprising ways.

Sherlock

You could have killed Agent Mattoo. And from your perspective, it would have been the expedient thing.

And yet, to you, it would have been repugnant. Tell me, is that how you learned to be one of them? By learning to care how your actions seemed in the eyes of another?

Sherlock

I'm not sure I am one of them.

Sherlock

I was attempting to get a rise out of you, to remind you that no matter where you go or how tedious the work you undertake, it will not change what you are, a detective.

Detective Bell

I am a detective.

Sherlock

Well, you still carry the title, yeah. But it's more than that, isn't it? It's a calling. It's your calling. You are not an analyst. You are not an assessor of data. You transferred from Major Crimes either because your pride would not allow you to occupy the same space as me or because you're feeling sorry for yourself. In either case, a pathetic excuse.

Detective Bell

I have a tremor in my hand. I can't shoot, can't get out on the street and work cases because of you!

Sherlock

Bollocks! You could've stayed in Major Crimes until you completed your rehab!

Detective Bell

You're assuming my rehab can be completed!

Sherlock

Because I have faith in you! I have faith in your perseverance! Be my friend, don't be my friend, whatever, but don't be so foolish as to confuse punishing me with punishing yourself!

Detective Bell

You know what I thought the first time I met you? Man, it comes easy for that guy. Well, I'm sorry. It doesn't come that easy to the rest of us.

Sherlock

I am a drug addict, Marcus. A drug addict. And it might seem like an abstraction to you because I have been sober since I made your acquaintance. But two years ago, I was as pitiable a soul as you will ever meet. With help, I fought back, and I got a little bit better. I know what I'm supposed to do with my life. Do you?

Excuse me, I was expecting to find my housemate.

No problem. I'm Gay.

...I'm not.

It's my name.

...Yes, of course. I'm Sherlock.

Hello... I also am. Gay. So, you know, it saves time.

...How efficient.

Watson

Why is Gay asleep on our couch?

I worked her hard. Don't be territorial about your geologist, Watson, I was in need of one.

Watson

[carrying a caged chicken] Why is Romulus outside my door?

That's Remus.

Watson

I don't care which cock I'm holding, I just want to know how it got there...! Okay, congratulations, you got me to say it.

I don't know if you've settled on an epitaph yet, but it does occur to me that that would look fantastic on a tombstone.

Watson

You're kidding!

That's me, Watson. Joke machine.

Misanthropy was so easy, Watson - elegant. I miss it sometimes.