Now, two years have passed and the situation is completely different: no one wants to organise this match.

Chess is like body-building. If you train every day, you stay in top shape. It is the same with your brain - chess is a matter of daily training.

When I was a child I liked the games of Capablanca, and later I was captivated by Alekhine's play.

It is rightly said that the most difficult thing in chess is winning a won position

Objectivity consists in understanding that the only one who never makes a mistake is the one who never does anything.

I go to bed at 4 a. m. Almost all chessplayers do.

For me art and chess are closely related, both are forms in which the self finds beauty and expression.

I am convinced, the way one plays chess always reflects the player's personality. If something defines his character, then it will also define his way of playing.

Playing rapid chess, one can lose the habit of concentrating for several hours in serious chess. That is why, if a player has big aims, he should limit his rapidplay in favour of serious chess.

In chess one cannot control everything. Sometimes a game takes an unexpected turn, in which beauty begins to emerge. Both players are always instrumental in this.

Chess is so deep, I simply feel lost.

Why have we books in heaven?""Why not?" asked my brother. "What strange ideas we mortals have of the pleasures and duties of this blessed life!...

'Option B' draws not just on my story but on the research and stories of many people overcoming all kinds of adversity. No one should have to go through challenges and trauma alone.

Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.

I made a photograph of a garden in Kyoto, the Zen garden, which is a rectangle. But a photograph taken from any one point will not show, well it shows a rectangle, but not with ninety degree angles.

You have no choice but to live in the present, if you're really being open to events and people as they come along.

All humans are frightened of their own solitude. But only in solitude can we learn to know ourselves, learn to handle our own eternal aloneness.

The muttered hint, "Remember, you have a stroke here," freezes my joints like a blast from Siberia.

Look at the world and see what's there. It's very beautiful. It's a very exciting but in some ways treacherous world, and all this goes into the writing.

In a country like South Africa, writers have nuisance value, because those of us who have become known overseas have certainly helped to inform people about what life is like there.

Politics - I don't know why, but they seem to have a tendency to separate us, to keep us from one another, while nature is always and ever making efforts to bring us together.