A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

The line plays on the paradox that writing does not merely transmit settled knowledge (“answers”) but can deliberately complicate it—turning clarity into productive difficulty. Kraus’s aphorism suggests that a distinctive writer reframes what seems resolved, exposing hidden assumptions, contradictions, or moral ambiguities, so that readers must think again. In this view, literary skill lies less in supplying solutions than in sharpening perception: making the familiar strange, and forcing an “answer” to be re-encountered as a question. The remark also carries a satirical edge typical of Kraus, implying that much public discourse offers ready-made answers, while genuine writing resists such simplifications by restoring complexity.