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

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.

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.

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.

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.

People have been playing against me below their strength for fifteen years.