Chess is difficult, it demands work, serious reflection and zealous research.

I am fully and entirely concentrated on the board. I never even consider my opponent's personality. So far as I am concerned, my opponent might as well be an abstraction or an automaton.

A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror

No great player blundered oftener than I done. I was champion of the world for twenty-eight years because I was twenty years ahead of my time. I played on certain principles, which neither Zukertort nor anyone else of his time understood. The players of today, such as Lasker, Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Schlechter and others have adopted my principles, and as is only natural, they have improved upon what I began, and that is the whole secret of the matter.

I shall accord to myself the honor of inscribing myself as an applicant for the American citizenship which according to law I can obtain only after five years residence in this country. And I shall yield to no one of my future countrymen in patriotism. I consider America now my real home.

Unfortunately, many regard the critic as an enemy, instead of seeing him as a guide to the truth.

Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack