Bobby fischer quotes

My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration

You are never too old to play chess!

When I was eleven, I just got good.

Blitz chess kills your ideas.

The United States is evil. It has to be brought down, it has to be eliminated from the world scene. They are the ones who have made the world the hell that it is.

First of all, we have to understand what communism is. I mean, to me, real communism, the Soviet communism, is basically a mask for Bolshevism, which is a mask for Judaism.

Teach people to play new chess, right away. Why do you offer them a black and white television set, when there is a set in color?

Too many times, people don't try their best. They don't have the keen spirit; the winning spirit. And once you make it you've got to guard your reputation - every day go in like an unknown to prove yourself. That's why I don't clown around. I don't believe in wasting time. My goal is to win the World Chess Championship; to beat the Russians. I take this very seriously.

Capablanca was among the greatest of chess players, but not because of his endgame. His trick was to keep his openings simple, and then play with such brilliance in the middlegame that the game was decided - even though his ooponent didn't always know it - before they arrived at the ending.

The old chess is too limited. Imagine playing cards, black jack for example, and every time the dealer has the same starting hand you have the same starting hand. What's the point?

All I want to do, ever, is play chess.

All I ever want to do is just play chess.

I read a book lately by Nietzsche and he says religion is just to dull the senses of the people. I agree.

She and I just don't see eye to eye together. She's a square. She keeps telling me that I'm too interested in chess, that I should get friends outside of chess, you can't make a living from chess, that I should finish high school and all that nonsense. She keeps in my hair and I don't like people in my hair, you know, so I had to get rid of her.

Well, I kind of split my life into two pieces. One was where my chess career lies. There, I kept my sanity, so to speak, and my logic. And the other was my religious life. I tried to apply what I learned in the church to my chess career too. But I still was studying chess. I wasn't just "trusting in God" to give me the moves.

Yeah, I used to dress badly until I was about sixteen. But people just didn't seem to have enough respect for me, you know And I didn't like that, so I decided I'd have to show them they weren't any better than me, you know? They were sort of priding themselves. They would say, 'He beat us at chess, but he's still just an uncouth kid.' So I decided to dress up.

Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.

I have never opened with the QP - on principle.

My sister bought me a set at a candy store and taught me the moves.

For the first lesson, I want you to play over every column of Modern Chess Openings, including the footnotes. And for the next lesson, I want you to do it again.

I grew up with the concept of freedom of speech. So I'm too old, it's too late for me to adjust to the new world, the new world order.

It's little quirks like this that could make life difficult for a chess machine.

I would rather be free in my mind, and be locked up in a prison cell, than to be a coward and not be able to say what I want.

America is totally under control of the Jews, you know. I mean, look what they're doing in Yugoslavia...

They're lying bastards. Jews were always lying bastards throughout their history. They're a filthy, dirty, disgusting, vile, criminal people.

I love the game - and I hate the Russians because they've almost ruined it. They only risk the title when they have to, every three years. They play for draws with each other but play to win against the Western masters. Draws make for dull chess, wins make for fighting chess.

You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances

It's the fault of the chess players themselves. I don't know what they used to be, but now they're not the most gentlemanly group. When it was a game played by the aristocrats it had more like you know dignity to it. When they used to have the clubs, like no women were allowed and everybody went in dressed in a suit, a tie, like gentlemen, you know. Now, kids come running in their sneakers. Even in the best chess club-and they got women in there. It's a social place and people are making noise, it's a madhouse.

I don't believe in hero worship.

Chess and me, it's hard to take them apart. It's like my alter ego.

I don't believe in psychology.

I hate ready-made suits, button-down collars, and sports shirts.

In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn't do well. They'd get bad openings.

Most people are sheep, and they need the support of others.

I felt that chess... is a science in the form of a game... I consider myself a scientist. I wanted to be treated like a scientist.

I usually never stay at the board after a game. Especially against Spassky. I made a dumb suggestion and he refuted it instantly! I know I'm going to have to play him some day and it was really stupid to look like such a jerk in front of him.

I like to make them squirm.

I think it's almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically.

A strong memory, concentration, imagination, and a strong will is required to become a great Chess player

I play honestly and I play to win. If I lose, I take my medicine.

I love chess, and I didn't invent Fischerandom chess to destroy chess. I invented Fischerandom chess to keep chess going. Because I consider the old chess is dying, it really is dead. A lot of people have come up with other rules of chess-type games, with 10x8 boards, new pieces, and all kinds of things. I'm really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so it's not degenerated down to memorisation and prearrangement like it is today.

I don't like to dwell on the past. I'm interested in Fischerandom now, I am working on a new clock, I'm trying to make chess a more exciting game today. I am not interested in sitting in my rocking chair thinking what I did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.

Alekhine developed as a player much more slowly than most. In his twenties, he was an atrocious chessplayer, and didn't mature until he was well into his thirties.

I give 98 percent of my mental energy to Chess Others give only 2 percent

Our mind is all we've got. Not that it won't lead us astray sometimes, but we still have to analyze things out within ourselves.

Sometimes girls write me. One girl in Yugoslavia sent me a whole slew of love letters. I don't know how she got my address. She was in a crowd watching me play. She says when I left there the stars fell out of the sky over Yugoslavia, or something like that.

I was in Japan a couple of months ago, I saw a preview for the movie Pearl Harbor. And they showed the Japanese airplanes coming in to bomb Pearl Harbor, and I applauded. Nobody else in the theater applauded.

Well, I'm not sure I know what you mean by a prima donna, but if something doesn't interest me or if someone bores me, or if I think they're a phony, I just don't bother with them, that's all.

Is it against the law to kill a reporter?

You can only get good at Chess if you love the game

The Russians have fixed world chess.

The white people should go back to Europe, and the country should be returned to the American Indians. This is the future I would like to see for the so-called United States.

Chess demands total concentration

Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

If you have seen one Alekhine game you've seen them all.

I add status to any tournament I attend.

Chess is a matter of delicate judgement, knowing when to punch and how to duck.

It is time to finish off the U.S. once and for all.

I really love the dark of the night. It helps me to concentrate.

There's no luck involved in chess. You just have to work at it.

In my opinion, the King's Gambit is busted. It loses by force.

When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties - before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since.

I consider myself to be a genius who happens to play chess.

He is the so-called father of the modern school of chess; before him, the King was considered a weak piece and players set out to attack the King directly. Steinitz claimed that the King was well able to take care of itself, and ought not to be attacked until one had some other positional advantage. He understood more about the use of squares than Morphy and contributed a great deal more to chess theory.

The United States is an illegitimate country, just like Israel. It has no right to exist. That country belongs to the Red man, the American Indian... It's actually a shame to be a so-called American, because everybody living there is a usurper, an invader taking part in this crime, which is to rob the land, rob the country and kill all the American Indians.

I am not today, nor have I ever been a Jew, and as a matter of fact, I am uncircumcised.

I don't remember one thing I learned in school.

I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.

Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book!

When I won the World Championship in '72, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country.

I could give any woman in the world a piece and a move; to Gaprindashvili even, a knight.

You know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot of book and memorization you know.

Don't even mention losing to me. I can't stand to think of it

Every chess game is like taking a five-hour final exam.

I prepare myself well. I know what I can do before I go in. I'm always confident.

I like the moment when I break a man's ego.

They're all weak, all women. They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know. They're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn't a woman player in the world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat.

But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt. He [Capablanca] wanted to change the rules [of chess] already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorisation and prearrangement. It's a terrible game now. Very uncreative.

Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all

Chess is like war on a board

I want to see the U.S. wiped out. Death to the U.S.

All my games are real

Its just you and your opponent at the board and you're trying to prove something

Patzer sees a check, gives a check.

Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind.

I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

To get squares you have to give up squares.

The U.S. and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them, for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them.

I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves

I hope the Icelandic government grants me political asylum.

Vacations are designed to refresh the outlook of everyone. No matter how tired they may be when they return to work, vacationers have been refreshed emotionally and intellectually. Their effectiveness in their job has probably improved, and they are, generally speaking, better employees for the time off.

Nothing eases suffering like human touch.

All that matters on the Chessboard is good moves.

Your body has to be in top condition. Your Chess deteriorates as your body does. You can't separate body from mind

If I win a tournament, I win it by myself. I do the playing. Nobody helps me

I'm not as soft or as generous a person as I would be if the world hadn't changed me.

Computers are our only opponents that don't always have no excuse when losing against me.

Ultimately the white man should leave the United States and the black people should go back to Africa.

Well, you know, in America everybody is interested in making the dollar fast. In Yugoslavia no matter how much you hustle you're not going to get rich, so you might as well play chess.

When I win, I'll put my title on the line every year, maybe even twice. I'll give players a chance to beat me.

Tactics flow from a superior position

If you don't win, it's not a great tragedy - the worst that happens is that you lose a game.

As Olafsson showed me, White can win... It's hard to believe. I stayed up all night analysing, finally convicing myself, and, incidentally, learning a lot about Rook and Pawn endings in the process.

That's what Chess is all about. One day you give your opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one

I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

There are tough players and nice guys, and I'm a tough player

Americans really don't know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.

Nobody has single-handedly done more for the US image than me...

I am the best player in the world, and I am here to prove it.

I was never invited to the White House.

I was going to do a book about the first prearranged Karpov-Kasparov match, '84-'85. But the God-damn Jews have stolen my entire file on that.

Yeah, there are too many Jews in chess. They seem to have taken away the class of the game. They don't seem to dress so nicely, you know. That's what I don't like.

My main interest right now is to expose the Jews. This is a lot bigger than me. They're not just persecuting me. This is not just my struggle, I'm not just doing this for myself... This is life and death for the world. These God-damn Jews have to be stopped. They're a menace to the whole world.

The system set up by F.I.D.E. ... Insures that there will always be a Russian world champion... The Russians arranged it that way.

I studied that first Karpov-Kasparov match for a year and a half before I cracked it, what they were doing, and discovered that it was all prearranged move-by-move. There's no doubt of it in my mind.

There's no one alive I can't beat.

I can remember times coming home from a chess club at four in the morning when I was half asleep and half dead and forcing myself to pray an hour and study an hour. You know, I was half out of my mind-stoned almost.

There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.

Different people feel differently about resigning

Nothing is so healing as the human touch.

I don't listen to weakies.

I don't like American girls. They're very conceited, you know. In Europe they're more pleasant.

I don't recommend trying to cram a lot of long opening-move variations into your head. The main idea behind any opening is to get a strong pawn center and give your pieces a lot of scope so that you cramp your opponent's position and can attack weaknesses in his game.

Concentrate on material gains. Whatever your opponent gives you take, unless you see a good reason not to.