I looked up in curiosity. Behind us stood the Brown and Eagle Wool Warehouse and Schneider's Cap Factory, both constructed with that wholehearted devotion to industry that sullied the word architecture.

I have given up attempting to plumb the depths of the female psyche, Watson. It is not unlike contemplating infinity--a worthy, even a spiritual meditation, destined from the beginning to fail entirely.

The door flew open, revealing a wrinkled, forward-thrusting face wreathed with a nimbus of wispy white hair, a face resembling nothing so much as a mole emerging from its burrow. Her spectacles were so dirty that I could hardly see the use of them. She peered at us as if at two scabrous street dogs and tightened her grasp on her cane.
"What do you want? I don't let rooms, and if you've business with my sons or my husband, they work for a living.

What the hell makes you smart?" I asked.
"I wouldn't go for coffee with you."
"Listen - I wouldn't ask you."
"That," she replied, "is what makes you stupid.

Think of something clever, witty or profound, keep it short and people may quote you.

I'd sneer and tell him he's got the cerebral finesse of an amoeba and delight in his squint of confusion.