Tom Riddle Quotes

Did you know— then?” asked Harry. “Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time? No.

Maybe he murdered Myrtle; that would’ve done everyone a favor. . . .

I know what you are known as . . . but to me, you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers. I am afraid that they never quite forget their charges’ youthful beginnings.

You are omniscient as ever, Dumbledore." "Oh, no, merely friendly with the local barmen.

Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter. . . .” He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hands, staring down at his enemy's shell.

It only put me in Griffindor. said Harry in a defeated voice, because I asked not to go in Slytherin... EXACTLY, said Dumbledore, beaming once more. Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

DRACO: My father thought he was protecting me. Most of the time. I think you have to make a choice - at a certain point - of the man you want to be. And I tell you that at a time you need a parent or a friend. And if you've learnt to hate your parent by then and you have no friends . . . then you're all alone. And being alone - that's so hard. I was alone. And it sent me to a truly dark place. For a long time. Tom Riddle was also a lonely child. You may not understand that, Harry, but I do - and I think Ginny does too.

Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a form . . .

This diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

GUIL: It [Hamlet's madness] really boils down to symptoms. Pregnant replies, mystic allusions, mistaken identities, arguing his father is his mother, that sort of thing; intimations of suicide, forgoing of exercise, loss of mirth, hints of claustrophobia not to say delusions of imprisonment; invocations of camels, chameleons, capons, whales, weasels, hawks, handsaws -- riddles, quibbles and evasions; amnesia, paranoia, myopia; day-dreaming, hallucinations; stabbing his elders, abusing his parents, insulting his lover, and appearing hatless in public -- knock-kneed, droop-stockinged and sighing like a love-sick schoolboy, which at his age is coming on a bit strong. ROS: And talking to himself. GUIL: And talking to himself.

I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.

Love is one of those things, you see. You cannot help whom you fall for. And yes, sometimes it does not make sense, and it will make you stare at the wall for hours trying to pinpoint the moment that tipped you over, the reason you fell in love. However, you will never find an explanation because it happens when you least expect it. You were meant to love Tom Riddle.

I am not a joke. I am not a riddle! I am not a bird or a cat or a penguin! I'm not a scarecrow or a plant or a puppet! I am not your broken friend! I am not your regretful teacher! I am not a child's fairy tale! I am not a circus act here to amuse and frighten you! I am not another one of your madmen howling at the moon! And I...I am not...I am not some rich boy playing dress-up! I AM BANE!

Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think.” “It only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “because I asked not to go in Slytherin. . . .” “Exactly,” said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned. “If you want proof, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you look more closely at this.” Dumbledore reached across to Professor McGonagall’s desk, picked up the blood-stained silver sword, and handed it to Harry. Dully,

Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students. His own very rare gift, Parseltongue — resourcefulness — determination — a certain disregard for rules,” he added, his mustache quivering again. “Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think.” “It only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “because I asked not to go in Slytherin. . . .” “Exactly,” said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

I must say, I’d like to know where you get your information, boy; more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are.

Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities

Exactly,” said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Harry sat motionless in his chair, stunned.

present and future, Harry Potter …’ He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

DRACO: My father thought he was protecting me. Most of the time. I think you have to make a choice — at a certain point — of the man you want to be. And I tell you that at that time you need a parent or a friend. And if you’ve learnt to hate your parent by then and you have no friends . . . then you’re all alone. And being alone — that’s so hard. I was alone. And it sent me to a truly dark place. For a long time. Tom Riddle was also a lonely child. You may not understand that, Harry, but I do — and I think Ginny does too. GINNY: He’s right. DRACO: Tom Riddle didn’t emerge from his dark place. And so Tom Riddle became Lord Voldemort. Maybe the black cloud Bane saw was Albus’s loneliness. His pain. His hatred. Don’t lose the boy. You’ll regret it. And so will he. Because he needs you, and Scorpius

Avada Kedavra!” “Expelliarmus!” The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort’s green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell.

The logical flaws and inconsistencies that riddled the tale, far from making him doubt its veracity finally convinced him that it might indeed be true; for life is like that.

Pierce names her Katherine Warner. The others take new names: Patrick Pierce becomes Tom Warner, Mallory Craig becomes Howard Keegan, and Dieter Kane becomes Dorian Sloane.

Don't defy the very divinity that created you, or else nature will turn her back on you.

My diary. Little Ginny’s been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes — how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how” — Riddle’s eyes glinted — “how she didn’t think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her. . . .” All the time he spoke, Riddle’s eyes never left Harry’s face. There was an almost hungry look in them. “It’s very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl,” he went on. “But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one’s ever understood me like you, Tom. . . . I’m so glad I’ve got this diary to confide in. . . . It’s like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket. . . .” Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn’t suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry’s neck. “If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted. . . . I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her . . .

And lastly — I hope you are not too sleepy to pay attention to this, Harry — the young Tom Riddle liked to collect trophies. You saw the box of stolen articles he had hidden in his room. These were taken from victims of his bullying behavior, souvenirs, if you will, of particularly unpleasant bits of magic. Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later

Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair. "Ginny!" Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. "Ginny- don't be dead- please don't be dead-" He flung his wand aside, grabbed Ginny's shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn't Petrified. But then she must be- "Ginny, please wake up," Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side. "She won't wake," said a soft voice. Harry jumped and spun around on his knees. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him- "Tom- Tom Riddle?" Riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off Harry's face. "What d'you mean, she won't wake?" Harry said desperately. "She's not- she's not-?" "She's still alive," said Riddle. "But only just.

In the mountains north-west of Athens, at Delphi, there stood an oracle; and so teasing were its revelations, so ambiguous and riddling its pronouncements, that Apollo, the god who inspired them, was hailed as Loxias—‘the Oblique One’. A deity less like Ahura Mazda it would have been hard to imagine.

I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?" "No," Riddle said at once. "I'd much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that- to that-" "You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?" said Dippet curiously. "Yes, sir," said Riddle, reddening slightly. "You are Muggle-born?" "Half-blood, sir," said Riddle. "Muggle father, witch mother." "And are both your parents-?" "My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me- Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather.

I suppose the real reason Ginny Weasley's like this is because she opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger." "What are you talking about?" said Harry. "The diary," said Riddle. "My diary. Little Ginny's been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes- how her brothers tease her, how she had come to school with secondhand robes and books, how"- Riddle's eyes glinted- "how she didn't think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her..." All the time he spoke, Riddle's eyes never left Harry's face. There was an almost hungry look in them. "It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in.... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket...." Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Harry's neck. "If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted.... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul into her..." "What d'you mean?" said Harry, whose mouth had gone dry. "Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat." "No," Harry whispered. "Yes," said Riddle, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her new diary entries... far more interesting, they became... Dear Tom," he recited, watching Harry's horrified face, "I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there. Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front. Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me.... There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad.... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!

Riddle said I'm like him. Strange likenesses, he said...." "Did he now?" said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully at Harry from under his thick silver eyebrows. "And what do you think, Harry?" "I don't think I'm like him!" said Harry, more loudly than he'd intended. "I mean, I'm- I'm in Gryffindor, I'm..." But he fell silent, a lurking doubt resurfacing in his mind. "Professor," he started again after a moment. "The Sorting Hat told me I'd- I'd have done well in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin's heir for a while... because I can speak Parseltongue...." "You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly, "because Lord Voldemort- who is the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin- can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure..." "Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said, thunderstruck. "It certainly seems so." "So I should be in Slytherin," Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore's face. "The Sorting Hat could see Slytherin's power in me, and it-" "Put you in Gryffindor," said Dumbledore calmly. "Listen to me, Harry. You happen to have many qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students. His own very rare gift, Parseltongue- resourcefulness- determination- a certain disregard for rules," he added his mustache quivering again. "Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor. You know why that was. Think." "It only put me in Gryffindor," said Harry in a defeated voice, "because I asked not to go in Slytherin...." "Exactly," said Dumbledore, beaming once more. "Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Tom Crick, the history teacher and narrator of Graham Swift's novel Waterland, clings to the same feeling of a kind of fated inexplicability when he expounds on the eel: "Curiosity will never be content. Even today, when we know so much, curiosity has not unraveled the riddle of the birth and sex life of the eel. Perhaps there are things, like many others, destined to never be learnt before the world comes to its end. Or perhaps-but here I speculate, here my own curiosity leads me by the nose-the world is so arranged that when all things are learnt, when curiosity is exhausted (so, long live curiosity), that is when the world shall have come to its end. But even if we learn how, and what, and where, and when, will we ever know why? Why, why?

I have many questions for you, Harry Potter." "Like what?" Harry spat, fists still clenched. "Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "how is it that you- a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent- managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?" There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now. "Why do you care how I escaped?" said Harry slowly. "Voldemort was after your time...." "Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter...." He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT "You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry- I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!

«Prima di tutto, Harry, voglio ringraziarti» disse Silente con occhi di nuovo brillanti. «Devi avermi dimostrato una vera lealtà, giù nella Camera. Soltanto quella può avere indotto Fawkes ad avvicinarsi a te». Accarezzò la fenice, che gli si era accovacciata sulle ginocchia. Harry sorrise imbarazzato mentre Silente lo guardava. «E così hai conosciuto Tom Riddle» disse Silente pensieroso. «Immagino che fosse molto interessato a te...» Tutt’a un tratto, la cosa che tormentava Harry gli uscì di getto dalle labbra. «Professor Silente... Riddle ha detto che io sono come lui. Strane somiglianze, ha detto...» «Ah sì? Ma davvero?» chiese Silente guardando pensieroso il ragazzo da sotto le folte sopracciglia d’argento. «E tu che ne pensi, Harry?» «Io non credo di essere come lui!» disse Harry con voce più acuta di quanto avesse voluto. «Voglio dire, io sono... io appartengo a Grifondoro, io sono...» Ma poi tacque, perché un dubbio gli si era riaffacciato alla mente. «Professore» riprese di nuovo dopo un istante. «Il Cappello Parlante mi disse che io... che... sarei stato bene fra i Serpeverde. Per un po’ tutti hanno pensato che fossi io l’erede di Serpeverde... perché parlo il Serpentese...» «Harry, tu parli il Serpentese» disse calmo Silente, «perché Voldemort – che è l’ultimo discendente rimasto di Salazar Serpeverde – parla il Serpentese. A meno che io non mi sbagli di grosso, la notte in cui ti ha lasciato quella cicatrice ti ha trasmesso alcuni dei suoi poteri. Anche se di certo non ne aveva intenzione...» «Voldemort ha messo un pezzetto di sé dentro di me?» chiese Harry trasecolato. «Si direbbe proprio di sì». «Allora è vero che dovrei stare con i Serpeverde!» disse Harry guardando disperato Silente. «Il Cappello Parlante ha visto in me il potere di Serpeverde e...» «Ti ha assegnato a Grifondoro» disse Silente sempre calmo. «Ascoltami bene, Harry. Si dà il caso che tu abbia molte qualità che Salazar Serpeverde apprezzava nei suoi alunni, che selezionava accuratamente. Il dono molto raro del Serpentese... intraprendenza... determinazione... un certo disprezzo per le regole» soggiunse, e ancora una volta i suoi baffi vibrarono. «E tuttavia, il Cappello Parlante ti ha assegnato a Grifondoro. Tu sai perché. Pensaci». «Lo ha fatto» disse Harry con la delusione nella voce, «perché gli ho chiesto io di non andare fra i Serpeverde...» «Appunto» disse Silente ancora una volta tutto raggiante. «Il che ti rende assai diverso da Tom Riddle. Sono le scelte che facciamo, Harry, che dimostrano quel che siamo veramente, molto più delle nostre capacità». Harry sedeva immobile, esterrefatto. «Se vuoi una prova che appartieni a Grifondoro, ti consiglio di dare un’occhiata più da vicino a questa». Così dicendo, si avvicinò alla scrivania della McGonagall, prese la spada d’argento macchiata di sangue e gliela porse. Come inebetito, Harry la rivoltò; i rubini mandavano bagliori luminosi alla luce del fuoco. Fu allora che vide il nome inciso proprio sotto l’elsa. Godric Grifondoro. «Soltanto un vero Grifondoro avrebbe potuto estrarla dal cappello, Harry» disse semplicemente Silente.

For Dylan, this electric assault threatened to suck the air out of everything else, only there was too much radio oxygen to suck. “Like a Rolling Stone” was the giant, all-consuming anthem of the new “generation gap” disguised as a dandy’s riddle, a dealer’s come-on. As a two-sided single, it dwarfed all comers, disarmed and rejuvenated listeners at each hearing, and created vast new imaginative spaces for groups to explore both sonically and conceptually. It came out just after Dylan’s final acoustic tour of Britain, where his lyrical profusion made him a bard, whose tabloid accolade took the form of political epithet: “anarchist.” As caught on film by D. A. Pennebaker’s documentary Don’t Look Back, the young folkie had already graduated to rock star in everything but instrumentation. “Satisfaction” held Dylan back at number two during its four-week July hold on Billboard’s summit, giving way to Herman’s Hermits’ “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am” and Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” come August, novelty capstones to Dylan’s unending riddle. (In Britain, Dylan stalled at number four.) The ratio of classics to typical pop schlock, like Freddie and the Dreamers’ “I’m Telling You Now” or Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual,” suddenly got inverted. For cosmic perspective, yesterday’s fireball, Elvis Presley, sang “Do the Clam.” Most critics have noted the Dylan influence on Lennon’s narratives. Less space gets devoted to Lennon’s effect on Dylan, which was overt: think of how Dylan rewires Chuck Berry (“Subterranean Homesick Blues”) or revels in inanity (“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”). Even more telling, Lennon’s keening vocal harmonies in “Nowhere Man,” “And Your Bird Can Sing,” and “Dr. Robert” owed as much to the Byrds and the Beach Boys, high-production turf Dylan simply abjured. Lennon also had more stylistic stretch, both in his Beatle context and within his own sensibility, as in the pagan balalaikas in “Girl” or the deliberate amplifier feedback tripping “I Feel Fine.” Where Dylan skewed R&B to suit his psychological bent, Lennon pursued radical feats of integration wearing a hipster’s arty façade, the moptop teaching the quiet con. Building up toward Rubber Soul throughout 1965, Beatle gravity exerted subtle yet inexorable force in all directions.

Voldemort fell backwards, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upwards. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snake-like face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse,

Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?’ These

After all, problems identified can be eliminated.

After all, he could promise the moon, since he had no intention of delivering in full on any claim. In part, yes, but if he were to deliver in full, heʼd have nothing left to hold as further leverage. So, confident yet extravagant claims seemed to be the way forwards.

It only put me in Gryffindor,’ said Harry in a defeated voice, ‘because I asked not to go in Slytherin …’ ‘Exactly,’ said Dumbledore, beaming once more. ‘Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle.

Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter. . . .” He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

It’s not my place to forgive anything you’ve done. But it’s better than another war.” “Ha,” said the Defense Professor. “If you ever find a Time-Turner that goes back forty years and can alter history, be sure to tell Dumbledore that before he rejects Tom Riddle’s application for the Defense position. But alas, I fear that Professor Riddle would not have found lasting happiness in Hogwarts.” “Why not?” “Because I still would’ve been surrounded by idiots, and I wouldn’t have been able to kill them,” Professor Quirrell said mildly. “Killing idiots is my great joy in life, and I’ll thank you not to speak ill of it until you’ve tried it for yourself.

Better not to get too attached to something that wasn’t certain - after all, doing so only invites disappointment.

The Harry Potter franchise has featured two noteworthy magical books, the diary of Tom Riddle and later Tom’s Potions textbook. Of

I remember Gable putting his arm around me as I walked off the stage of the NCAA final. I wanted that win so badly. I was so close. How could I have allowed my mind to drift during the biggest moment and event of my life? I didn’t come to Iowa for Big Ten titles. I didn’t even consider them. I came for NCAA Titles and fell short. There was an emptiness in me. Though I wasn’t lost, I was hurting. What I came to Iowa for alluded me. A last-second loss as a junior and an injury-riddled senior year left me in an empty place. So much went into winning. What would college leave me hungry for? It would leave me so close but never attaining what I deeply longed for.

Darwin thought of that riddle about how you can only run halfway into the woods because then you’re running out. Maybe life was the same, and he had passed the halfway point. Maybe it wasn’t an accident that our greatest aspirations and nightly outrageous fantasies shared the same word: dreams.

makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

I think you have to make a choice — at a certain point — of the man you want to be. And I tell you that at that time you need a parent or a friend. And if you’ve learnt to hate your parent by then and you have no friends . . . then you’re all alone. And being alone — that’s so hard. I was alone. And it sent me to a truly dark place. For a long time. Tom Riddle was also a lonely child. You may not understand that, Harry, but I do — and I think Ginny does too.

Tom Riddle didn’t emerge from his dark place. And so Tom Riddle became Lord Voldemort. Maybe the black cloud Bane saw was Albus’s loneliness. His pain. His hatred. Don’t lose the boy. You’ll regret it. And so will he. Because he needs you, and Scorpius.

You are who he made. Fine. And I'm whatever the horrors of my life made me. Fine. All our sins, our earned tragedies, all of it. All that damn pain. It's all here with us. It is us. And I'm sure it's all meaningful or hilarious or philosophical or deep or something or everything. We could spend our whole lives mired in the complexities. But really, compared to us--compared to you and me--what we have, or could have...all that pain we have...honestly Who cares?

Tom Riddle’s face. Merope had got her dying wish: He was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired, and pale.

You will remember, I am sure, that we left the tale of Lord Voldemort’s beginnings at the point where the handsome Muggle, Tom Riddle, had abandoned his witch wife, Merope, and returned to his family home in Little Hangleton. Merope was left alone in London, expecting the baby who would one day become Lord Voldemort.

Tom Marvolo Riddle” . . . And Other Anagrams for “I Am Lord Voldemort” • Lord Earldom Vomit • I Am Lord Old Mr. Out • Mild Doormat Lover • Dermal Drool Vomit • Old Immortal Lover • Milk Moor, Dad Lover • Marmot Drool Devil

offered me new perspectives: the works of Ken Blanchard, of Tom Friedman and of Seth Godin, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham, Good to Great by Jim Collins, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, E-Myth by Michael Gerber, The Tipping Point and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Chaos by James Gleick, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, M.D., The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, FISH! By Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen and Ken Blanchard, The Naked Brain by Richard Restack, Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, The Black Swan by Nicholas Taleb, American Mania by Peter Whybrow, M.D., and the single most important book everyone should read, the book that teaches us that we cannot control the circumstances around us, all we can control is our attitude—Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I

Magic always leaves traces,’ said Dumbledore, as the boat hit the bank with a gentle bump, ‘sometimes very distinctive traces. I taught Tom Riddle. I know his style.

The battle of Stones River, often called the Battle of Murfreesboro, was a Union victory. It was there that Tom narrowly escaped butchering at the hand of the field doctor, cheating death. He felt older and a little wiser but feared being captured and sent back into the deadly war, so he headed west.

Ted, my husband, asked me to introduce his story because I am the one who heard it first. We had been married for two years when his “gift” was given to us. It was about 4:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. We were both asleep in our home in Tonkawa, Oklahoma, when he sat up in bed and said, “I know how I died!” I awoke to those words, astonished as he began to tell the end of his life in a different-sounding voice and using words and a dialect I had not heard before. After a few moments of an intense outpouring of emotional facts, places, names, and events, I knew I had to write “his story” down on paper. I climbed out of bed in the dark, found a legal-size yellow pad and pencil and began writing as fast as I could. He did not slow down to help me catch up; the tale just kept flowing from his mouth. The hairs on my arms stood on end and chills continued as he told in detail events that happened over one hundred years ago. My fingers began to cramp as I kept trying to keep up with him. The descriptions were so vivid that I could visualize what he was saying like a movie playing before my eyes. Eventually we hurried to the living room after I found a small tape recorder in our dresser drawer. Ted continued to talk in this unusual voice, causing me to laugh and cry as this true-to-life saga of the 1870s began to unravel. He told me how he died at about the age of sixty. Then he went to the beginning, when Tom Summers, who was sixteen years old, left home to join the Union Army. He lied about his age and was able to join the army and fight in the Civil War. The journey takes you into the war, on into Indian Territory and westward. Every day for Tom was an adventure, and Ted will share it with you. Anyone who meets Ted is drawn to him instantly. His manner is one of confidence: of a very genuine, honest, loveable guy. He will win you over with his “Just one more story” or a big bear hug if you are not careful. We met at a teen hop in the 1950s, when I was fifteen and he was seventeen. We dated in rural America for about a year. He was then leaving the farm to go to Oklahoma State University, and he asked me to marry him. We both married other people and raised our children. Forty-one years later, we discovered each other again. This time, I said, “Yes.” Join us on our fascinating journey into the Old West as seen through Tom Summers’s “beautiful blue eyes.

Tom ran for what seemed like forever. Finally, he fell to the ground, exhausted and slept a fitful sleep. He woke with a start, picked up his knapsack, which felt heavier than usual, and continued in what he thought was the west.

Lord Voldemort is my past present and future" -Tom Riddle

Voldemort is incapable of feeling love. The story goes that his mother Merope was in love with a muggle, Tom Senior who didn't reciprocate the same feelings for her. One day she decided to spike Tom's drink with a love potion and young Tom Riddle was conceived while Tom Senior was still under the effects of the potion. When Tom Riddle Senior’s potion had worn off and he'd realized what had happened he ran away never to come back. Later Merope would die leaving little Tom Riddle in an orphanage giving him zero hope in the love department.

Dumbledore had never been able to turn either Tom Riddle or Snape away from Dark Magic when they were students, but he lived long enough to see that Snape’s teaching reached Draco.

Above all, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is about the missing story of the mother. Tom Marvolo Riddle was named after his father and maternal grandfather, but we learn his mother Merope’s story to understand why Voldemort chose Harry to mark as his equal. Severus Snape bears the surname of his Muggle father, but in his magical textbook, he names himself after his witch mother, Eileen Prince. Harry hears about his father’s friends and about his mother herself, but on the topic of Harry’s mother’s friends, everyone is conspicuously silent.

The actor who played little Tom Riddle in the orphanage in Dumbledore’s memory is the real-life nephew of Ralph Fiennes who plays Voldemort.

Tom Marvolo Riddle

I never feel certain about anything with you. At one time you take pleasure in a sort of perverse self-denial, and at another you have not resolution to resist a thing that you know to be wrong.” There was a terrible cutting truth in Tom’s words — that hard rind of truth which is discerned by unimaginative, unsympathetic minds. Maggie always writhed under this judgment of Tom’s; she rebelled and was humiliated in the same moment; it seemed as if he held a glass before her to show her her own folly and weakness, as if he were a prophetic voice predicting her future fallings; and yet, all the while, she judged him in return; she said inwardly that he was narrow and unjust, that he was below feeling those mental needs which were often the source of the wrong-doing or absurdity that made her life a planless riddle to him.

The bang was like a cannon-blast and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead centre of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort’s green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air towards the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backwards, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upwards. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snake-like face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell.