Caissa, the goddess of chess, had punished me for my conservative play, for betraying my nature.

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.

If your experiment needs a statistician, you need a better experiment.

Their doubt is your fuel for dreams. You just have to drive.

Man loves pleasure. But women desire purposeful commitment.

Never be timid about your own pleasure. Don't be ashamed to come.

You're born with certain gifts and you use them as best you can in life. You begin to learn and recognize that you have certain skills and aptitudes that you apply and use them to carry you forward.

When you do not know how to focus your thoughts effectively, they can become scattered, miscellaneous, and fixated on "stuff negative notions, toxic relationships, and situations from the past."

If you can say the lyrics almost like a poem and they stand up, that's a great thing. Some songs have great lyrics and I don't like the melodies, and vice versa.

I'll give you an example. Henry, the old black guy who cooks the corn bread, he worked on the railroads for about 20 years so he knows how to lay and build track.

In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it.

I'm not sure it's possible to stay in Hawaii. It's kind of impractical.