Riddle Poem

Famous quotes containing the words riddle and/or poem:

    “To the questions of the officiously meddling police Falter replied absently and tersely; but, when he finally grew tired of this pestering, he pointed out that, having accidentally solved “the riddle of the universe,” he had yielded to artful exhortation and shared that solution with his inquisitive interlocutor, whereupon the latter had died of astonishment.”
    —Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    “The poem is lonely. It is lonely and en route. Its author stays with it. Does this very fact not place the poem already here, at its inception, in the encounter, in the mystery of encounter?”
    —Paul Celan [Paul Antschel] (1920–1970)