If you want to get to the top, there's always the risk that it will isolate you from other people.

Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it's OK to lose. I don't. You have to be merciless.

You need to have that edge, you need to have that confidence, you need to have that absolute belief that you're - you're the best and you'll win every time.

What I admired most about him [Bobby Fischer] was his ability to make what was in fact so difficult look easy to us. I try to emulate him.

Without the element of enjoyment, it is not worth trying to excel at anything.

You have to choose the move that feels right sometimes; that's what intuition is.

I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style.

Maybe if I didn't have the talent in chess I'd find the talent in something else. The only thing I know is that I have talent in chess, and I'm satisfied with that.

I don't think there is a thing like overconfidence in chess. It's always better to be too confident than too reluctant.

People ask what my goal is. I don't have a goal.

When you have fun then you're more interested in learning.

The best incentive for an artist are the harshest criticism

Shadows of the world made shadows of the heart much deeper.

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

I just remind myself that the gifts I have, I've been given for a reason and that every day brings new opportunities to use them.

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.

To read well is to prepare oneself to live wisely, kindly and wittily.

If you in any way abate the doctrine of hell, it will abate your zeal.

When opportunity knocks, you have to open the door, with or without your confidence.

Man is man so long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal and external.

I believe in anything that works.