Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I played like a child!
I'm not really into rap.
Unfortunately I'm still not a fashion expert.
People ask what my goal is. I don't have a goal.
I'm more interested in the games than the people.
It's just not my nature to go around idolizing people.
I've never really had a favorite player, past or present.
When you have fun then you're more interested in learning.
I think with chess as with everything, marketing is the main issue.
My former coach, Simen Agdestein, used to be the best player in Norway.
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 not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I'm just a normal person.
I feel sorry for players who are always lying awake at night, brooding over their games.
My father, a fine chess player himself, has been a massive influence throughout my life.
Contrary to many young Colleagues, I do believe that it makes sense to study the Classics.
I don't look at computers as opponents. For me it is much more interesting to beat humans.
It's nice to be financially secure. Apart from that, I really don't care too much about money.
If you want to get to the top, there's always the risk that it will isolate you from other people.
I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.
The Nanjing games are homework by Garry Kasparov and me, [...] Today's game was provided by Garry.
I really enjoy the experience of playing humans. The psychological game is so much more important.
Chess only appeals to quite a small minority. It does not have the cachet of a mainstream popular sport.
I spend hours playing chess because I find it so much fun. The day it stops being fun is the day I give up.
Kids love games and chess is a game where you have to sit down and concentrate and it just helps in every way.
It's easy for me to get along with chess players. Even though we are all very different, we have chess in common.
Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it's OK to lose. I don't. You have to be merciless.
Right now I'm really happy with how things are going with my chess career, so I'm not thinking of doing anything else.
Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it's okay to lose. I don't. You have to be merciless.
I don't think there is a thing like overconfidence in chess. It's always better to be too confident than too reluctant.
I don't really watch too many movies. I don't have the patience usually to watch one, one and a half or two hours in a row.
Once you're a chess player, you spend a lot of time thinking about the game and you can't get it completely out of your head.
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.
For me, the most important thing is to continue to play well and to be a positive figure and hopefully a role model for kids as well.
I honestly don't read that much. Obviously I read chess books - in terms of favorites, Kasparov's 'My Great Predecessors' is pretty good.
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.
There are certainly loads of players that I admire; I try to learn from all of the great masters both of the past and contemporary as well.
I enjoy hiking and skiing, like most Norwegians. In winter, there will be snow for months on end. In the summer, there are the long evenings to enjoy.
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.
There are so many games that I've seen that I've learned from. I never - that's also part of the same - never single out a particular player or a particular game.
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'm definitely the first no.1 in the world since Fischer, and probably at least since Kasparov, who probably has the most potential to dominate for the foreseeable future.
I learnt an enormous amount, but there came a point where I found there was too much stress. It was no fun any more. Outside of the chessboard I avoid conflict, so I thought this wasn't worth it.
Not winning a tournament is not an option for me, unless it's no longer theoretically possible - then of course winning becomes impossible. But up to that point, not winning is just not an option.
I was lucky enough to attend schools where they were understanding about when I needed to go abroad to play chess. Of course, socially it is important to go to school and interact with people your own age.
For me right now I think being the world number one is a bigger deal than being the world champion because I think it shows better who plays the best chess. That sounds self-serving but I think it's also right.
One of the things that first attracted me to chess is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people - men of the stature of Garry Kasparov, the former world champion, who was my part-time coach.
Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check.
I started by just sitting by the chessboard exploring things. I didn't even have books at first, and I just played by myself. I learnt a lot from that, and I feel that it is a big reason why I now have a good intuitive understanding of chess.
In my experience, when I went to school, and especially in after-school, and during breaks, a lot of people wanted to sit down and play chess up till a certain age when it was not supposed to be cool anymore and people wanted to do other things.