Of course the sad truth is that if we are not present to the moment, our true love could come and go and we wouldn't even notice.

My coach and my parents both had this relationship to what I was doing, which was allowing me to express myself with chess. And so I could love it. I had a passion for it. I was expressing myself through chess, and I was learning about myself through chess.

Just about every error has a technical and psychological component: get good at discovering those connections

A man wants to walk across the land, but the earth is covered with thorns. He has two options - one is to pave his road, to tame all of nature into compliance. The other is to make sandals. Making sandals is the internal solution...it does not base success on a submissive world or overpowering force, but on intelligent preparation and cultivated resilience.

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

In chess you might find a good move. Then you might find a better move. But take your time. Find the best move.

I have never considered myself a prodigy. Others have used that term, but I never bought in to it.