Well, I’m not sure I know what you mean by a prima donna, but if something doesn’t interest me or if someone bores me, or if I think they’re a phony, I just don’t bother with them, that’s all.
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.
As Olafsson showed me, White can win… It’s hard to believe. I stayed up all night analysing, finally convicing myself, and, incidentally, learning a lot about Rook and Pawn endings in the process.
In 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.
These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they’re going to know the truth when I do this book!
