On being a detective

I'm very much enjoying Doulgas Adam's detective Dirk Gently. Very fun, and funny.

"What was that Sherlock Holmes principle? 'Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' "

"I reject that entirely," said Dirk sharply. "The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbably lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbably? Your instinct is to say, 'Yes, but he or she simply wouldn't do that.' "

"The impossible merely supposes that there is something we don't know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The improbable, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality."

- from The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams