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Riddles Quotes

Browse 39 quotes about Riddles.

Riddles Quotes

“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?”

BibleCriticsOld TestamentRiddlesJake ChambersSamsonSusannah DeanBlaineJohn Wayne
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“Mary's His mother and all who do His will, He calls us His brothers. Appreciate Him while He's around because when the well dries up, you'll know the worth of the water. The word of the Father, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, basic instructions to follow the Son born of a virgin, chosen at birth. The chosen of first and the chosen of last, Alpha and Omega, we're chosen as facts.”

TruthKnowledgePowerBibleInsightScripturesParablesRiddlesSubliminal Messages
Book:The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey
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“Well," Eddie said, "I don't know how hard it'll seem to you, but it struck me as a toughie." Nor did he know the answer, since that section of Riddle-De-Dum! had been torn out, but he didn't think that made any difference; their knowing the answers hadn't been part of the ground-rules. "I SHALL HEAR AND ANSWER." "No sooner spoken than broken. What is it?" "SILENCE, A THING YOU KNOW LITTLE ABOUT, EDDIE OF NEW YORK," Blaine said with no pause at all, and Eddie felt his heart drop a little. There was no need to consult with the others; the answer was self-evident. And having it come back at him so quickly was the real bummer. Eddie never would have said so, but he had harbored the hope-almost a secret surety-of bringing Blaine down with a single riddle, ker-smash, all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Blaine together again. The same secret surety, he supposed, that he had harbored every time he picked up a pair of dice in some sharpie's back-bedroom crap game, every time he called for a hit on seventeen while playing blackjack. That feeling that you couldn't go wrong because you were you, the best, the one and only. "Yeah," he said, sighing. "Silence, a thing I know little about. Thankee-sai, Blaine, you speak truth." "I HOPE YOU HAVE DISCOVERED SOMETHING WHICH WILL HELP YOU," Blaine said, and Eddie thought: You fucking mechanical liar. The complacent tone had returned to Blaine's voice, and Eddie found it of some passing interest that a machine could express such a range of emotion. Had the Great Old Ones built them in, or had Blaine created an emotional rainbow for himself at some point? A little dipolar pretty with which to pass the long decades and centuries? "DO YOU WISH ME TO GO AWAY AGAIN SO YOU MAY CONSULT?" "Yes," Roland said.”

SilenceRiddlesRoland DeschainEddie DeanBlaine
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“I do not shoot with my hand,'" Eddie said. He suddenly felt far away, strange to himself. It was the way he'd felt when he had seen first the slingshot and then the key in pieces of wood, just waiting for him to whittle them free ... and at the same time this feeling was not like that at all. Roland was looking at him oddly. "Yes, Eddie, you say true. A gunslinger shoots with his mind. What have you thought of?" "Nothing." He might have said more, but all at once a strange image-a strange memory-intervened: Roland hunkering by Jake at one of their stopping-points on the way to Lud. Both of them in front of an unlit campfire. Roland once more at his everlasting lessons. Jake's turn this time. Jake with the flint and steel, trying to quicken the fire. Spark after spark licking out and dying in the dark. And Roland had said that he was being silly. That he was just being ... well ... silly. "No," Eddie said. "He didn't say that at all. At least not to the kid, he didn't." "Eddie?" Susannah. Sounding concerned. Almost frightened. Well why don't you ask him what he said, bro? That was Henry's voice, the voice of the Great Sage and Eminent Junkie. First time in a long time. Ask him, he's practically sitting right next to you, go on and ask him what he said. Quit dancing around like a baby with a load in his diapers. Except that was a bad idea, because that wasn't the way things worked in Roland's world. In Roland's world everything was riddles, you didn't shoot with your hand but with your mind, your motherfucking mind, and what did you say to someone who wasn't getting the spark into the kindling? Move your flint in closer, of course, and that's what Roland had said: Move your flint in closer, and hold it steady. Except none of that was what this was about. It was close, yes, but close only counts in horseshoes, as Henry Dean had been wont to say before he became the Great Sage and Eminent Junkie. Eddie's memory was jinking a little because Roland had embarrassed him ... shamed him ... made a joke at his expense ... Probably not on purpose, but ... something. Something that had made him feel the way Henry always used to make him feel, of course it was, why else would Henry be here after such a long absence?”

MindShootingRiddlesRoland DeschainJake ChambersSusannah DeanEddie DeanHenry Dean
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“Roland: Riddle me this, Blaine: If you break me, I'll not stop working. If you can touch me, my work is done. If you lose me, you must find me with a ring soon after. What am I? Susannah's breath caught for a moment, and although he was looking down, Eddie knew she was thinking what he was thinking: that was a good one, a damned good one, maybe- Blaine: (still without hesitation) THE HUMAN HEART. THIS RIDDLE IS BASED IN LARGE PART UPON HUMAN POETIC CONCEITS; SEE FOR INSTANCE JOHN AVERY, SIRONIA HUNTZ, ONDOLA, WILLIAM BLAKE, JAMES TATE, VERONICA MAYS, AND OTHERS. IT IS REMARKABLE HOW HUMAN BEINGS PITCH THEIR MINDS ON LOVE. YET IT IS CONSTANT FROM ONE LEVEL OF THE TOWER TO THE NEXT, EVEN IN THESE DEGENERATE DAYS. CONTINUE, ROLAND OF GILEAD.”

LoveHeartRiddlesRoland DeschainSusannah DeanEddie DeanBlaine
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“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?”

AnswersRiddlesJake ChambersEddie DeanBlaine
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“What goes up must come down. But what is up? And what is down? Are you up there looking down on me? Or is it I who has the trick with gravity? Reach for me and I'll reach for you. For in the middle is where grounds stand true. 'Tis not a lie nor a deceived eye, but an understanding between you and I. So I ask again to a friend with a cup, have a drink with me if you know what's up?”

BalanceGravityWord PlayRiddles
Book:Painting Angels
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“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!”

JokesTwilight ZoneRiddlesEddie DeanBlaineGarbage Pail Kids
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“So simple yet so complex. We are the source of it all. Currently the currency that exist is our credit from God but instead of the credit given to God, we worship what was created instead of the Creator. You can never truly have ownership of the created and ownership of the created isn't only currency but you as well. Serve the Creator and you take ownership of you which is property of God.”

IronyManifestationParablesScribesRiddlesSubliminal Messages
Book:The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey
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“What lies in bed, and stands in bed? First white, then red The plumper it gets The better the old woman likes it?" "A dork! Crude, Roland! But I like it! I LIKE IT!" "Your answer is wrong. A good riddle is sometimes a puzzle in words, like Jake's about the river, but sometimes it's more like a magician's trick, making you look in one direction while it's going somewhere else." "It's a double." "Is it a strawberry? Of course it is. It's like the fire-riddle. There's a metaphor hidden inside it. Once you understand the metaphor, you can solve the riddle.”

RiddlesRoland DeschainJake ChambersSusannah DeanEddie Dean
Book:The Waste Lands
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“We don't have much time. The mono travels just as fast toward its point of ending whether Blaine's with us or not." "You don't really believe he's gone, do you?" Eddie asked. "A slippery pup like him? Come on, get real. He's peeking, I guarantee you." "I doubt it very much," Roland said, and Susannah decided she agreed with him. For now, at least. "You could hear how excited he was at the idea of riddling again after all these years. And-" "And he's confident," Susannah said. "Doesn't expect to have much trouble with the likes of us." "Will he?" Jake asked the gunslinger. "Will he have trouble with us?" "I don't know," Roland said. "I don't have a Watch Me hidden up my sleeve, if that's what you're asking. It's a straight game ... but at least it's a game I've played before. We've all played it before, at least to some extent. And there's that." He nodded toward the book which Jake had taken back from Oy. "There are forces at work here, big ones, and not all of them are working to keep us away from the Tower." Susannah heard him, but it was Blaine she was thinking of-Blaine who had gone away and left them alone, like the kid who's been chosen "it" obediently covering his eyes while his playmates hide. And wasn't that what they were? Blaine's playmates? The thought was somehow worse than the image she'd had of trying the escape hatch and having her head torn off. "So what do we do?" Eddie asked. "You must have an idea, or you never would have sent him away." "His great intelligence-coupled with his long period of loneliness and forced inactivity-may have combined to make him more human than he knows. That's my hope, anyway. First, we must establish a kind of geography. We must tell, if we can, where he is weak and where he is strong, where he is sure of the game and where not so sure. Riddles are not just about the cleverness of the riddler, never think it. They are also about the blind spots of he who is riddled." "Does he have blind spots?" Eddie asked. "If he doesn't," Roland said calmly, "we're going to die on this train.”

RiddlesRoland DeschainJake ChambersSusannah DeanEddie DeanBlaineOy
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“We will riddle him four times to begin with," Roland said. "Easy, not so easy, quite hard, very hard. He'll answer all four, of that I am confident, but we will be listening for how he answers." Eddie was nodding, and Susannah felt a small, almost reluctant glimmer of hope. It sounded like the right approach, all right. "Then we'll send him away again and hold palaver," the gunslinger said. "Mayhap we'll get an idea of what direction to send our horses. These first riddles can come from anywhere, but"-he nodded gravely toward the book-"based on Jake's story of the bookstore, the answer we really need should be in there, not in any memories I have of Fair-Day riddlings. Must be in there." "Question," Susannah said. Roland looked at her, eyebrows raised over his faded, dangerous eyes. "It's a question we're looking for, not an answer," she said. "This time it's the answers that are apt to get us killed." The gunslinger nodded. He looked puzzled-frustrated, even-and this was not an expression Susannah liked seeing on his face. But this time when Jake held out the book, Roland took it. He held it for a moment (its faded but still gay red cover looked very strange in his big sunburned hands ... especially in the right one, with its essential reduction of two fingers), then passed it on to Eddie. "You're easy," Roland said, turning to Susannah. "Perhaps," she replied, with a trace of a smile, "but it's still not a very polite thing to say to a lady, Roland." He turned to Jake. "You'll go second, with one that's a little harder. I'll go third. You'll go last, Eddie. Pick one from the book that looks hard-" "The hard ones are toward the back," Jake supplied. "... but none of your foolishness, mind. This is life and death. The time for foolishness is past.”

FoolishnessRiddlesRoland DeschainJake ChambersSusannah DeanEddie DeanBlaine
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“Susannah smiled at them nervously, then looked up at the route-map. "Hello, Blaine." "HOWDY, SUSANNAH OF NEW YORK." Her heart was pounding, her armpits were damp, and here was something she had first discovered way back in the first grade: it was hard to begin. It was hard to stand up in front of the class and be first with your song, your joke, your report on how you spent your summer vacation ... or your riddle, for that matter. The one she had decided upon was one from Jake Chambers's crazed English essay, which he had recited to them almost verbatim during their long palaver after leaving the old people of River Crossing. The essay, titled "My Understanding of Truth," had contained two riddles, one of which Eddie had already used on Blaine. "SUSANNAH? ARE YOU THERE, L'IL COWGIRL?" Teasing again, but this time the teasing sounded light, good-natured. Good-humored. Blaine could be charming when he got what he wanted. Like certain spoiled children she had known. "Yes, Blaine, I am, and here is my riddle. What has four wheels and flies?" There was a peculiar click, as if Blaine were mimicking the sound of a man popping his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It was followed by a brief pause. When Blaine replied, most of the jocularity had gone out of his voice. "THE TOWN GARBAGE WAGON, OF COURSE. A CHILD'S RIDDLE. IF THE REST OF YOUR RIDDLES ARE NO BETTER, I WILL BE EXTREMELY SORRY I SAVED YOUR LIVES FOR EVEN A SHORT WHILE.”

RiddlesJake ChambersSusannah DeanBlaine
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“Roland: This is as light as a feather, yet no man can hold it for long. Blaine: (without hesitation) ONE'S BREATH. Yet he did hesitate, Eddie thought suddenly. Jake and Susannah were watching Roland with agonized concentration, fists clenched, willing him to ask Blaine the right riddle, the stumper, the one with the Get the Fuck Out of Jail Free card hidden inside it; Eddie couldn't look at them-Suze, in particular-and keep his concentration. He lowered his gaze to his own hands, which were also clenched, and forced them to open on his lap. It was surprisingly hard to do. From the aisle he heard Roland continuing to trot out the golden oldies of his youth.”

RiddlesRoland DeschainJake ChambersSusannah DeanEddie DeanBlaine
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“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.”

RiddlesJake ChambersSusannah DeanBlaineImagination Of Mankind
Book:Wizard and Glass
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“That’s what I love about what-am-I riddles or more open-ended riddles: there are always a certain set of traditional answers to those riddles, like with other riddles, but their answers are determined by whether or not they fit the criteria the riddle has, not just whether or not they fit the answer; it’s kind of like an evidence-based answer versus a multiple choice question. If I, for example, presented you with this riddle: “What is an impulse yet helps you think” (I just made that riddle up, actually), there is the traditional answer I thought of: nerve impulses. However, there are still other possibilities. For instance, a person could be all philosophical and say, ‘any impulse helps you think. Although you think recklessly, you technically are still thinking.’ With a multiple choice question, there would only be one answer, so you are very limited with riddles like that.”

RiddlesOpen EndedWhat Am I
Book:The Reformation
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