“The main idea behind any opening is to get a strong pawn center and give your pieces a lot of scope so that you cramp your opponent’s position and can attack weaknesses in his game.”

I add status to any tournament I attend.

A strong memory, concentration, imagination, and a strong will is required to become a great Chess player

Romance is an illusion. Well, romance is not a complete illusion, but it’s ephemeral. It does not last.

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…

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.

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.

And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces.

The male is always the pawn in a romantic comedy. Come together, break up, go chase her, get her, roll credits. That’s what happens in all of them.

Be warned! From Satan’s viewpoint you are a pawn in his game of cosmic chess.

We are Muslims. My father would pawn off his Muslim in-laws as Hindus just so that he could get free pancakes.