“When I won the World Championship in ’72, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country.”

Now my only income is a few royalty cheques from my books.

If I win a tournament, I win it by myself. I do the playing. Nobody helps me

I prepare myself well. I know what I can do before I go in. I’m always confident.

I’ve always been very interested in fashion, but it is extremely important to me that the social and environment issues associated with the production of fashionable clothing are addressed.

I 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.

People have been playing against me below their strength for fifteen years.

There’s no luck involved in chess. You just have to work at it.

I think it’s almost definite that the game is a draw theoretically.

Nobody has single-handedly done more for the US image than me…

I studied that first Karpov-Kasparov match for a year and a half before I cracked it, what they were doing, and discovered that it was all prearranged move-by-move. There’s no doubt of it in my mind.

Genius. It’s a word. What does it really mean? If I win I’m a genius. If I don’t, I’m not.

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.

I want to see the U.S. wiped out. Death to the U.S.

Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.

You are never too old to play chess!

The Russians have held my title for ten years and they’re going to be in for it when I win the Championship. They’re going to have to wait and play under my conditions.

If you get a guy that can play a couple positions, it helps you out a real lot.

How can you think and hit at the same time?

The hardest thing is to get started, but the really hardest thing is to finish.

You stand up for your teammates. Your loyalty is to them. You protect them through good and bad, because they’d do the same for you.

The game is supposed to be fun. If you had a bad day, don’t worry. You can’t expect to get a hit every game.

One of the hardest things in life to accept is a called third strike.

Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.

The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, ‘Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and yelling, You want a piece of me?