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
It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the duality of human experience, where events can embody both tragic and comedic elements.
Arthur Conan Doyle suggests that life is a complex blend of comedy and tragedy. In this quote, he highlights the varying consequences of a single event, indicating that different people can interpret and experience the same scenario in drastically different ways—some may find humor, while others endure suffering or face serious repercussions. Ultimately, he invites the audience to form their own judgments about the situation, emphasizing the subjective nature of experiences.
Themes
ComedyTragedyExperienceSubjectivityJudgment
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the nature of human experiences, this quote can illustrate how events can be perceived differently.
More from Arthur Conan Doyle
All quotes →I 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
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
Michel De MontaigneRead
When the storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us that human beings are more alike than unalike... A story is what it's like to be a human being-to be knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of us has arisen, awakened. We do rise.
Maya AngelouRead
In other words, what is supposedly found is an invention whose inventor is unaware of his act of invention, who considers it as something that exists independently of him; the invention then becomes the basis of his world view and actions.
Paul WatzlawickRead
Roughly speaking, I think it's accurate to say that a corporate elite of managers and owners governs the economy and the political system as well, at least in very large measure.
Noam ChomskyRead
He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.
Mikhail BakuninRead
It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.
Thomas MannRead