Well, I'm still looking for Maurice Ashley. My essential qualities. I think that more than anything, I try to do the right thing, I think about doing the right thing.

If the kids get a good grasp of what the main lessons are for chess after two or three years of staying with the game, then you've given them brain food and you've given them a skill that can last them a lifetime.

Well I just so happened to bump into a chess book in the library at school and I didn't know that there were books on chess and so I take this book out and I'm like this is going to be cool, I'm going to whoop on this guy now, so I studied the book and I go back and the guy crushes me again.

My brother played the game with his friends, so I thought I was a pretty smart kid and I played this friend of mine and he just crushed me and this was Brooklyn Tech High School in Brooklyn where I still live, in Brooklyn, New York and this guy beat me so bad it wasn't even funny. I couldn't understand why he beat me.

I think that by and large chess players have been very kind. Like I said there have been a few incidents, but they certainly didn't serve to bring me down any.

His tenacity is unmatched in my opinion. Incredible how someone could have suffered that long and come back out of prison with such a good heart and positive things to say and do.

Just because you lose doesn't mean you're a loser, and champions don't quit.