Riddles Quotes

“If yes is no and once is never, then how many sides does a triangle have?”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Inheritance Games

“Elodin proved a difficult man to find. He had an office in Hollows, but never seemed to use it. When I visited Ledgers and Lists, I discovered he only taught one class: Unlikely Maths. However, this was less than helpful in tracking him down, as according to the ledger, the time of the class was 'now' and the location was 'everywhere.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?'
'Hmm . . . What do you think, Harry?' said Luna, looking thoughtful.
'What? Isn’t there just a password?'
'Oh no, you’ve got to answer a question,' said Luna.
'What if you get it wrong?'
'Well, you have to wait for somebody who gets it right,' said Luna. 'That way you learn, you see?'
'Yeah . . . Trouble is, we can’t really afford to wait for anyone else, Luna.'
'No, I see what you mean,' said Luna seriously. 'Well then, I think the answer is that a circle has no beginning.'
'Well reasoned,' said the voice, and the door swung open.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“If we care to listen to the secrets of our body and the riddles of our heart, we can balance the surfing flow between the wants of our mind and the needs of the flesh. ("Disruption" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“A circle has no end.”
― Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation

“Let’s all forsake,
The Land of Wake,
And break for the Land of Nod.

Where we can try,
To touch the sky,
Or dance beneath the sod.

A toll for the living,
A toll for the lost,
A toll for the wise ones,
Who tally the cost,

So let’s escape,
Due south of Wake,
And make for the Land of Nod.”
― Neal Shusterman, Thunderhead

“Is time the wheel that turns, or the track it leaves behind?”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Errand

“I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow-clouded, yielding nothing tangible. Her inept acrostics, maudlin evasions, theopathies - every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything seemed yellowly blurred, illusive, lost.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories

“It's just that I take riddling seriously. I was taught that the ability to solve them indicates a sane and rational mind.”
― Stephen King, The Waste Lands

“From time to time
I once wondered how one wanders from time to time
And think up the paradox line
Speak of Epoch's crime
Oh I lied, it hasn't happened yet
But bet you better believe it's such a habit that
I just said that in a past mindset”
― Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality

“Dechymic pwy yw.
Creadt kyn dilyw.
Creadur kadarn
Heb gic heb ascwrn.
Heb wytheu heb waet.
Heb pen aheb traet.
Ny bed hyn ny byd ieu.
No get y dechreu.
Ny daw oe odeu
Yr ofyn nac agheu.
Ny dioes eisseu
Gan greaduryeu.

Guess who it is.
Created before the deluge.
A creature strong,
Without flesh, without bone,
Without veins, without blood,
Without head, and without feet.
It will not be older, it will not be younger,
Than it was in the beginning.
There will not come from his design
Fear or death.
He has no wants
From creatures.”
― Taliesin

“You're just being cryptic again. It's like soap opera sex. Lots of boring dialogue and when they finally do go to bed, everything's dark and covered by blankets.”
― Ragnar Tornquist

“What builds up castles, tears down mountains, makes some blind, helps others to see? SAND. (Thankee-sai)
What lives in winter, dies in summer, and grows with its roots upward? AN ICICLE. (Blaine, you say true)
Man walks over, man walks under, in time of war he burns asunder? A BRIDGE. (Thankee-sai)”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Roland: Blaine, what has eyes yet cannot see?
Blaine: THERE ARE FOUR ANSWERS: NEEDLES, STORMS, POTATOES, AND A TRUE LOVER.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Roland: We play for keeps. No one cries off.
Blaine: CORRECT. NO ONE CRIES OFF.
Roland: All right, Blaine, we play for keeps and no one cries off. Here's the next.
Blaine: AS ALWAYS, I AWAIT IT WITH PLEASURE.
Roland: (to Jake) Be ready with yours, Jake; I'm almost at the end of mine. (to Blaine) Blaine, I occur once in a minute, twice in every moment, but not once in a hundred thousand years. What am I?
Blaine: THE LETTER M.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Blaine: WOULD YOU TRY ME WITH RIDDLES FROM YOUR BOOK? OUR TIME TOGETHER GROWS SHORT.
Jake: Yes. I would try you with these riddles. Give me your understanding of the truth concerning each, Blaine.
Blaine: IT IS FAIRLY SPOKEN, JAKE OF NEW YORK. I WILL DO AS YOU ASK.
Jake: Listen, Blaine. In a tunnel of darkness lies a beast of iron. It can only attack when pulled back. What is it?
Blaine: (without hesitation) A BULLET.
Jake: Walk on the living, they don't even mumble. Walk on the dead, they mutter and grumble. What are they?
Blaine: (without hesitation) FALLEN LEAVES.
If Jake really knew in his heart that the game was lost, why did he feel such despair, such bitterness, such anger?
Jake: (in his mind) Because he's a pain, that's why. Blaine is a really BIG pain, and I'd like to push his face in it, just once. I think even making him stop is second to that on my wish-list. (to Blaine) I am emeralds and diamonds, lost by the moon. I am found by the sun and picked up soon. What am I?
Blaine: (still relentless, still unhesitating) DEW.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“One after another, Jake posed his riddles; one after another, Blaine answered them. When Jake turned to the last page, he saw a boxed message from the author or editor or whatever you called someone who put together books like this:

We hope you've enjoyed the unique combination of imagination and logic known as RIDDLING!

Jake: (in his mind) I haven't. I haven't enjoyed it one little bit, and I hope you choke.
Yet when he looked at the question above the message, he felt a thin threat of hope. It seemed to him that, in this case, at least, they really HAD saved the best for last.
Susannah: Hurry up, Jake!
Jake: Blaine?
Blaine: YES, JAKE OF NEW YORK.
Jake: With no wings, I fly. With no eyes, I see. With no arms, I climb. More frightening than any beast, stronger than any foe. I am cunning, ruthless, and tall; in the end, I rule all. What am I?
Blaine: (promptly) THE IMAGINATION OF MAN AND WOMAN.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Susannah: (sotto voce) Everybody's a goddam critic.
Jake: Blaine, I have one more.
Blaine: EXCELLENT.
Jake: Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came sweetness.
Blaine: (amused) THIS RIDDLE COMES FROM THE HOLY BOOK KNOWN AS 'OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE OF KING JAMES.' IT WAS MADE BY SAMSON THE STRONG. THE EATER IS A LION; THE SWEETNESS IS HONEY, MADE BY BEES WHICH HIVED IN THE LION'S SKULL. NEXT? YOU STILL HAVE TIME, JAKE.
Jake: (shaking his head negatively) I've told them all. I'm done.
Blaine: (as John Wayne) SHUCKS, L'IL TRAILHAND, THAT'S A PURE-D SHAME. LOOKS LIKE I WIN THAT THAR GOOSE, UNLESS SOMEBODY ELSE CARES TO SPEAK UP. WHAT ABOUT YOU, OY OF MID-WORLD? GOT ANY RIDDLES, MY LITTLE BUMBLER BUDDY?”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Eddie: What has four wheels and flies?
Blaine: (disapproving) THE TOWN GARBAGE WAGON, AS I HAVE ALREADY SAID. ARE YOU SO STUPID OR INATTENTIVE THAT YOU DO NOT REMEMBER? IT WAS THE FIRST RIDDLE YOU ASKED ME.
Eddie: (in his mind) Yes. And what we all missed--because we were fixated on stumping you with some brain-buster out of Roland's past or Jake's book--is that the contest almost ended right there. (to Blaine) You didn't like that one, did you, Blaine?
Blaine: (agreeably) I FOUND IT EXCEEDINGLY STUPID. PERHAPS THAT'S WHY YOU ASKED IT AGAIN. LIKE CALLS TO LIKE, EDDIE OF NEW YORK, IS IT NOT SO?
Eddie: (smiling and shaking his finger) Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Or, as we used to say back in the neighborhood, 'You can rank me to the dogs and back, but I'll never lose the hard-on I use to fuck your mother.'
Jake: Hurry up! If you can do something, DO IT!
Eddie: It doesn't like silly questions. It doesn't like silly games. And we KNEW that. We knew it from Charlie the Choo-Choo. How stupid can you get? Hell, THAT was the book with the answers, not Riddle-De-Dum, but we never saw it. (to Blaine) Blaine: when is a door not a door?
Blaine: (clicking his tongue) WHEN IT'S AJAR, OF COURSE. WOULD YOU DIE WITH SUCH STUPID RIDDLES IN YOUR MOUTH?”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Little Blaine: You're making him angry. Oh, you're making him SO angry.
Eddie: (kindly) Get lost, squirt. (to Blaine) Answer this one, Blaine: the big moron and the little moron were fighting on the bridge over the River Send. The big moron fell off. How come the little moron didn't fall off, too?
Blaine: THAT IS UNWORTHY OF OUR CONTEST. I WILL NOT ANSWER.
Roland: (with blazing eyes) What do you say, Blaine? I would not understand you well. Are you saying that you cry off?
Blaine: NO! OF COURSE NOT! BUT--
Roland: Then answer, if you can. Answer the riddle.
Blaine: (gratingly) IT'S NOT A RIDDLE! IT'S A JOKE, SOMETHING FOR STUPID CHILDREN TO CACKLE OVER IN THE PLAY YARD!
Roland: (confidently) Answer now or I declare the contest over and our winner. You must answer, for it is stupidity you complain of, not transgression of the rules, which we agreed upon mutually.
Blaine: (clicking his tongue loudly and gratingly, causing Eddie to wince and Oy to flatten his ears against his skull; a pause of three seconds, then, sulkily) THE LITTLE MORON DID NOT FALL OFF BECAUSE HE WAS A LITTLE MORE ON. MORE PHONETIC COINCIDENCE. TO EVEN ANSWER SUCH AN UNWORTHY RIDDLE MAKES ME FEEL SOILED.”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Little Blaine: Stop! Stop it, you're killing him!
Eddie: (in his mind) What do you think he's trying to do to us, squirt?
He considered shooting Blaine one Jake had told while they'd been sitting around the campfire that night and then didn't. He wanted to stick further inside the bounds of logic than that one allowed...and he could do it. He didn't think he would have to get much more surreal than the level of, say, a third-grader with a fair-to-good collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards in order to fuck Blaine up royally...and permanently. Because no matter how many emotions his fancy dipolar circuits had allowed him to mimic, HE was still an IT--a computer. Even allowing Eddie this far into riddledom's Twilight Zone had caused Blaine's sanity to totter.
Eddie: Why do people go to bed, Blaine?
Blaine: BECAUSE...BECAUSE...GODS DAMN YOU, BECAUSE...BECAUSE THE BED WON'T COME TO THEM, GODS DAMN YOU!
Eddie: Give up, Blaine. Stop before I have to blow your mind completely. If you don't quit, it's going to happen. We both know it.
Blaine: NO!
Eddie: I got a million of these puppies. Been hearing them my whole life. They stick to my mind the way flies stick to flypaper. Hey, with some people it's recipes. So what do you say? Want to give?
Blaine: NO!
Eddie: Okay, Blaine. You asked for it. Here comes the cruncher. Why did the dead baby cross the road? (later) It crossed the road because it was stapled to the chicken, you dopey fuck!”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“What's the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and a truckload of dead woodchucks? You can't unload a truckload of bowling balls with a pitchfork!”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Say, Blaine, you ugly, sadistic fuck! Since we're talking riddles, what is the greatest riddle of the Orient? Many men smoke but Fu Manchu! Get it? No? So solly, Cholly! How about this one? Why'd the woman name her son Seven and a Half? Because she drew his name out of a hat!”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“There is nothing to complain about if someone is screaming outside. It is getting much worse if they are screaming all around, from every direction, in the dark.”
― Erhard Morro, Don't Read: A Gripping Horror Story With Shocking Riddles And An Unexpected Twist

“A wolf is wearing a collar with a six-foot metal chain. Ten feet away, there is a chicken pen with chickens inside. The wolf manages to kill all the chickens. How?”
― R.P. Jones, Chrysalis

“The bravery of Turtle is Time, coarse of Rabbit is Future and the destiny of Bird is Present.”
― Ben Jr Grey

“I'm not great at solving puzzles or riddles. Especially those riddles where you have to ride boats back and forth with foxes, geese, and sacks of grain. The fox would eat everything and I would starve.”
― Glen Nesbitt, BREAK OUT OF HEAVEN

“Look at my face and I am someone,' she whispered in his ear. 'Look at my back and I am no one. Who am I?'

'I don't know,' Oak admitted, a shiver running between his shoulders.

'Your mirror, HIghness,' she said, her breath tickling the hairs on his neck.

And then she slipped away.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Riddles: they either delight or torment. Their delight lies in solutions. Answers provide bright moments of comprehension perfectly suited for children who still inhabit a world where solutions are readily available.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition