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 DoyleRead
The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is full of surprises, and the unexpected has become a regular occurrence.
Arthur Conan Doyle reflects on the nature of life and how surprises, once considered 'unexpected', have become a common part of his experiences. This statement suggests that one should embrace uncertainty, as life's unpredictability can shape our realities in remarkable ways.
Themes
UnexpectedLifeSurprisesExperiencesUncertainty
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about embracing change and resilience.
More from Arthur Conan Doyle
All quotes βI had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air -- or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
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 DoyleRead
It seems very strange ... that in the course of the world's history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. ... The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
Similar quotes
Most men spend the best part of their lives making the remaining part wretched.
Jean De La BruyereRead
In the pathway of the sun, In the footsteps of the breeze, Where the world and sky are one, He shall ride the silver seas, He shall cut the glittering wave. I shall sit at home, and rock; Rise, to heed a neighbor's knock; Brew my tea, and snip my thread; Bleach the linen for my bed. They will call him brave.
Dorothy ParkerRead
Alone, she took hot baths and sat exhausted in the steaming water, wondering at her perpetual exhaustion. All that winter she noticed the limp, languid weight of her arms, her veins bulging slightly with the pressure of her extreme weariness ... one day in January she drew a razor blade lightly across the inside of her arm, near the elbow, to see what would happen.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
The lesson, I suppose, is that none of us have much control over how we will be remembered. Every life is an amalgam, and it is impossible to know what moments, what foibles, what charms will come to define us once we're gone. All we can do is live our lives fully, be authentically ourselves and trust that the right things about us, the best and most fitting things, will echo in the memories of us that endure.
Alice McdermottRead
Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, sit down with myself and explain that things were going to be okay, that everybody loses ground sometimes and it doesnβt mean anything. Itβs the way life works. This is hard to understand in the moment. You get to thinking about the girl who rejected you, the job you got fired from, the test you failed, and you lose sight of the big picture β the fact that life has a beautiful way of remaking itself every few weeks.
Donald MillerRead
The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.
Corrie Ten BoomRead