Bobby Fischer Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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

I don't believe in hero worship.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

All that matters on the Chessboard is good moves.

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.

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

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 Russians have held my title for ten years and they're going to be in for it when I win the Championship. They're going to have to wait and play under my conditions.

I don't believe in psychology.

I am boring. I am boring!

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

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

Is it against the law to kill a reporter?

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

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

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

Different people feel differently about resigning

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.

Nothing is so healing as the human touch.

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.

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 know people who have all the will in the world, but still can't play good Chess

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.

Let's play. I'm willing to play anywhere.

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

All I ever want to do is just play chess.

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?

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.

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.

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.

There isn't a woman player in the world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I hope the Icelandic government grants me political asylum.