No chess grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their madness.

As a rule, the more mistakes there are in a game, the more memorable it remains, because you have suffered and worried over each mistake at the board.

The human element, the human flaw and the human nobility - those are the reasons that chess matches are won or lost.

Every time I win a tournament I have to think that there is something wrong with modern chess.

I don't study; I create.

At one point, after having already become a Grandmaster and champion of the USSR,I suddenly realized that I am heading for a dead end... I had to start everything over. But how hard and agonizing it is when you're no longer 16, but twice that age!