It is a gross overstatement, but in chess, it can be said I play against my opponent over the board and against myself on the clock.

No Chess Grandmaster is normal they only differ in the extent of their madness

It is unpleasant for the players, when the organizers arrange for play to take place in the morning. The games from such last rounds, in view of the large number of mistakes, are not fit for publication!

Chess you don't learn, chess you understand.

All obvious moves look dubious in analysis after the game.

I don't study I create.

Those who think that it is easy to play chess are mistaken. During a game a player lives on his nerves, and at the same time he must be perfectly composed.

The only positive contribution to chess from Fischer in the last 20 years.

As a rule, the more mistakes there are in a game, the more memorable it remains, because you have suffered and worried over each mistake at the board.

The whole life with a wife is like an end game with two bishops of different colors.

Sometimes I even say that I have surpassed Lasker in using psychology. How? Well, sometimes I use psychology with a portion of risk. That is something else, something that Lasker wouldn't allow.

The human element, the human flaw and the human nobility - those are the reasons that chess matches are won or lost.

Chess players, people who travel all over the world, should be trusted or else not sent anywhere at all. Why are these four people (Antoshion and three other official 'minders') sent along to supervise us? With their meagre experience, all that thay did was interfere, more than ever before. And when they were needed, they weren't to be found.

Every time I win a tournament I have to think that there is something wrong with modern chess.

[Garry] Kasparov and [Anatoly] Karpov have something in common. They both want to become deputies of the Russian State Duma.

Skeletons of mice are often to be found in coconuts, for it is easier to get in, slim and greedy, than to get out, appeased but fat.

The aim was simple: to deprive Karpov of his favourite occupation - standing at the board, staring straight at his opponent. While I was wearing these glasses, all he could admire was his own reflection.