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.

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.

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.

Putin is like Al Capone.

……but work in the field has nothing to do with dignity or with anything except patience, concentration, and eternal vigilance

Witchcraft is the attempt to gain special knowledge or power outside God. What do we mean by "special?" We mean power or knowledge that is not found or allowed by God in the natural order.

The absolute dependence of a newborn infant inspired many things in me, but it did not activate any magical knowledge about what to do for the next twenty years.

Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!

There is an ambush everywhere from the army of accidents; therefore the rider of life runs with loosened reins.

The critic is a man who prefers the indolence of opinion to the trials of action.

It's not easy for you, Dad You seek your own space You slope off to watch telly But still see (Mom's Mum's Mam's) face

An acrobatic dunk will make it onto Sports Center. A simple, unspectacular bounce pass in the rhythm of the offense will not. System basketball has been replaced by players who want to be the system.

What I admire most in men - To sit opposite a mirror at dinner and not look in it