“Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.”
Sherlock Holmes · BBC Sherlock, Series 2, Episode 1: A Scandal in Belgravia, 2012
quolira
quolira.com
You've been so alone. And you think that's the price of being extraordinary. And maybe it is. But you've been paying it so long.
839 / 988
About this quote
Meaning
Molly is naming something Sherlock has internalized so deeply that he no longer questions it: the belief that exceptional ability requires solitude as its payment. She is not disputing that the price exists, only pointing out how long he has been paying it without ever asking whether it is the only possible arrangement. The compassion in the line is precise rather than sentimental. She is not offering easy comfort or telling him he is wrong about himself. She is simply noting that the cost has been real and has been carried a long time, and that observation alone carries weight.
Context
The line comes in the fourth series finale, an episode that puts several characters through extreme psychological pressure. Molly Hooper throughout the series occupies a particular role: she sees Holmes more clearly than almost anyone else, partly because she has fewer illusions about him and fewer reasons to be dazzled. This moment continues that pattern, giving her a line that reaches past Holmes's defenses not by confronting them directly but by quietly acknowledging what is underneath them. It was noted by many viewers as one of the more emotionally true moments in the final series.
About the author
Molly Hooper is a character original to the BBC adaptation, written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and played by Louise Brealey. She does not appear in Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, but across the series she develops into one of its most quietly significant figures. The writers used her consistently as a character capable of genuine emotional honesty in a show populated by people who prefer performance or deflection, and this line represents that quality at its clearest.
Up next
“I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant, and all-round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. I am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy. So if I didn't understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody's best friend.”
Sherlock Holmes · BBC Sherlock, Series 3, Episode 2: The Sign of Three, 2014
Share this quote
“I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant, and all-round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. I am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy. So if I didn't understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody's best friend.”
“The world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics.”
Sherlock Holmes · BBC Sherlock, Series 3, Episode 2: The Sign of Three, 2014
“Did you miss me?”
Jim Moriarty · BBC Sherlock, Series 3 finale post-credits sequence, 2014
“You're not haunted by the war, Dr. Watson. You miss it.”
Sherlock Holmes · BBC Sherlock, Series 1, Episode 1: A Study in Pink, 2010
“I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them.”
Sherlock Holmes · BBC Sherlock, Series 2, Episode 3: The Reichenbach Fall, 2012
“Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain.”
Jim Moriarty · BBC Sherlock, Series 2, Episode 1: A Scandal in Belgravia, 2012
“Brainy is the new sexy.”
Irene Adler · BBC Sherlock, Series 2, Episode 1: A Scandal in Belgravia, 2012
“I'm not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.”
Sherlock Holmes · BBC Sherlock, Series 1, Episode 1: A Study in Pink, 2010
“The game is on.”
Sherlock Holmes · BBC Sherlock, Series 1, Episode 1: A Study in Pink, 2010
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Søren Kierkegaard · Journals, 1843
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde · The Soul of Man Under Socialism, 1891
