All that now seems to stand between Nigel and the prospect of the world crown is the unfortunate fact that fate brought him into this world only two years after Kasparov.

I've met enough KGB colonels in my life.

If you wish to succeed, you must brave the risk of failure.

A grandmaster needs to retain thousands of games in his head, for games are to him what the words of their mother tongue are to ordinary people, or notes or scores to musicians.

It was not about losing my mental power; it's about not feeling good about my contribution to the game.

I think Russians today have a distorted picture of capitalism, liberal democracy and market economy.

Losing can persuade you to change what doesn't need to be changed, and winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the brink of disaster.

At the end of the day, it's all about money.

Excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general intelligence. That is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might be.

Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.

When I was preparing for one term's work in the Botvinnik school I had to spend a lot of time on king and pawn endings. So when I came to a tricky position in my own games I knew the winning method.

Denial is the way people handle what they cannot handle.

Writing, is not a race. Is to distill the soul letter by letter in a slow and delicate process that will take years.

No enterprise can exist for itself alone.

I hate playing the piano! And it's so hard to fight for Beethoven's soul! But that's what I have to do!

I'm betting that in two years I'll be talking to you about a film that I shot on an iPhone. It's absolutely coming, I have no doubt in my mind.

I won't perform in Cuba until there's no more Castro and there's a free Cuba. To me, Cuba's the biggest prison in the world, and I would be very hypocritical were I to perform there.

It was kind of a decompression - from straight alcohol to mixed drinks to wine to spritzers - and then you're out.

In my mind, so-called "cultures of innovation" really boil down to one word: curiosity.

I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me.