Quotes by Chess Players

...That is my biography from the first day of my chess life to the present.JOURNALIST. And your plans.PLAYER. To play!
Mikhail Tal
One reason people get divorced is that they run out of gift ideas.
Robert Byrne
The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
Robert Byrne
It's not what you see that is art art is the gap.
Marcel Duchamp
To the consummate competitor, winning is not the same as beating your opponents. Winning is playing to your absolute best; beating others is a corollary effect, not the primary goal.
Alisa Melekhina
Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours.
Robert Byrne
The move is there, but you must see it.
Savielly Tartakower
What distinguishes a true competitor from a mere participant is that the competitor derives enjoyment from the nature of the competition aside from the prize at the end. She gets a rush from the gaming dynamics and appreciates the beauty of the game. At the end of the day, you play for the love of the game or not at all.
Alisa Melekhina
Of course, errors are not good for a chess game, but errors are unavoidable and in any case, a game without errors, or as they say 'flawless game' is colorless.
Mikhail Tal
Now that's a ghastly moon, not ghostly.
Anthea Carson
Jane sneezed three hundred dollars' worth of coke into the air.Krishna's black eyes seem to have mirrors in them. She glances at me with a smile as big as the Cheshire Cat's.
Anthea Carson
As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other.
Marcel Duchamp
In interviews with riders that I've read and in conversations that I've had with them, the same thing always comes up: the best part was the suffering. In Amsterdam I once trained with a Canadian rider who was living in Holland. A notorious creampuff: in the sterile art of track racing he was Canadian champion in at least six disciplines, but when it came to toughing it out on the road he didn't have the character.The sky turned black, the water in the ditch rippled, a heavy storm broke loose. The Canadian sat up straight, raised his arms to heaven and shouted: 'Rain! Soak me! Ooh, rain, soak me, make me wet!'How can that be: suffering is suffering, isn't it?In 1910, Milan—San Remo was won by a rider who spent half an hour in a mountain hut, hiding from a snowstorm. Man, did he suffer!In 1919, Brussels—Amiens was won by a rider who rode the last forty kilometers with a flat front tire. Talk about suffering! He arrived at 11.30 at night, with a ninety-minute lead on the only other two riders who finished the race. The day had been like night, trees had whipped back and forth, farmers were blown back into their barns, there were hailstones, bomb craters from the war, crossroads where the gendarmes had run away, and riders had to climb onto one another's shoulders to wipe clean the muddied road signs.Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns into memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature's payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. 'Good for you.' Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lay with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately. That's why there are riders.Suffering you need; literature is baloney.
Tim Krabbé
The cherished dream of every chessplayer is to play a match with the World Champion. But here is the paradox: the closer you come to the realization of this goal, the less you think about it.
Mikhail Tal
The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.
Josh Waitzkin
He landed on cheap shot, but I knocked him out of the tournament.
Josh Waitzkin
Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography.
Robert Byrne
To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.
Marcel Duchamp
Possible reality [is obtained] by slightly bending physical and chemical laws.
Marcel Duchamp
All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone.. the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.
Marcel Duchamp
Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.
Marcel Duchamp
The individual, man as a man, man as a brain, if you like, interests me more than what he makes, because I've noticed that most artists only repeat themselves.
Marcel Duchamp
I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.
Marcel Duchamp
I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.
Marcel Duchamp
A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.
Robert Byrne
Rather than reacting to every obstacle or dashed expectation, incorporate the event into your overall plan. Real life setbacks like rejections, broken promises, and unfair disadvantages will happen. Rethink the meaning behind the emotional triggers and how your reaction will further your purpose. Manage emotions by recognizing their place, but do not allow them to control your moves.
Alisa Melekhina
The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
Robert Bryne
I like living, breathing better than working...my art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral, it's a sort of constant euphoria.
Marcel Duchamp
To err is human, to purr is feline.
Robert Byrne
All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.
Marcel Duchamp