I don't believe in hero worship.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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