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.
Bobby FischerPsychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.
Bobby FischerToo 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.
Bobby FischerThey'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.
Bobby FischerIn 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.
Bobby FischerThat's what Chess is all about. One day you give your opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one
Bobby FischerThe turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.
Bobby FischerI'd like to travel around, be an international playboy. They have all that money; they could really do it right. Look at (Errol) Flynn.
Bobby FischerShe 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.
Bobby FischerI could give any woman in the world a piece and a move; to Gaprindashvili even, a knight.
Bobby FischerThe 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.
Bobby FischerWell, 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.
Bobby FischerA strong memory, concentration, imagination, and a strong will is required to become a great Chess player
Bobby FischerBut 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.
Bobby FischerI 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.
Bobby FischerConcentrate on material gains. Whatever your opponent gives you take, unless you see a good reason not to.
Bobby FischerI am not today, nor have I ever been a Jew, and as a matter of fact, I am uncircumcised.
Bobby FischerI 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.
Bobby FischerYeah, 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.
Bobby FischerHe 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.
Bobby FischerWhen 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.
Bobby FischerI don't like American girls. They're very conceited, you know. In Europe they're more pleasant.
Bobby FischerOur 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.
Bobby FischerI 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.
Bobby FischerSometimes 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.
Bobby Fischer