The Rookie Quotes

“Chess is my world. Not a house, not a fortress where I hide myself from life’s hardship, but indeed the world. The world in which I live a full life, in which I prove myself’ – Mikhail Tal, world champion, 1960–61”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“I wasn’t obsessed enough to bury myself in positions for hours on end. I always wanted the instant solution, the quick fix. Playing blitz, a form of throwaway chess, always appealed more than working at the game to log something that would last.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“Duchamp’s working methods were marked by an almost mathematical precision,’ wrote Tomkins, ‘and one of the things he loved about chess was that its most brilliant innovations took place within a framework of strict and unbendable rules.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“To indict chess for not producing monuments is to indict all play and many of the arts … It is in the nature of beauty to have no use and few products. Why turn somersaults on a four-inch (not three, not five) balance beam? Because it is difficult and demands perfection of certain human faculties, the exercise and apprehension of which are beautiful. There is no other answer.’ Chess was pointless, but rather wonderful in its pointlessness, like so much human play.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“Chess reflects how people long for meaning and purpose in their lives,’ says Robert Desjarlais in the conclusion of his book Counterplay, ‘how we want to live intensely, craft something of beauty, test ourselves against others and achieve a sense of mastery in our endeavours. Chess speaks to the place of ritual and cultural forms in our lives, and how we seek rites, devices, or magical charms to keep anxiety at bay.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“The American writer, inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin, a keen (though by all accounts not very good) player, insisted it was the former, as he made clear in a much-reprinted essay called ‘The Morals of Chess’ (published in 1786 but written half a century earlier) which argued that it was good for the soul. ‘The Game of Chess,’ he wrote, ‘is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions. For life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events that are, in some degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it.’ Franklin said chess taught you foresight, circumspection, caution and optimism.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“There just aren’t enough years left for you to become a really strong player, but there’s still pleasure to be had in beating better players. You need to play more violently.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“Fischer was difficult, unpredictable, brilliant, mesmerising; a genius and a madman.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“It was a sort of suicide – first as a player, then as a man. The once implacable Fischer had no resistance left. That he should die at 64 – the number of squares on the chessboard – was the ultimate irony, as fitting as it was tragic. What a waste, yet what a life. No wonder it is Fischer’s story that film-makers still want to tell.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“Chess subscribes to Sayre’s law, which states that ‘in any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake’.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“Are we not guilty of offensive disparagement in calling chess a game?’ he asks. ‘Is it not also a science and an art?’ In a winding sentence that contains arguments for and against chess, he accepts that it has been ‘shown to be more durable in its entity and existence than all books and works of art’ and is ‘the only game that belongs to all nations and all eras’.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“Kamsky said he did not like to subject games by Rubinstein and Petrosian to computer analysis in case he found holes in them. ‘Computers are too strong nowadays,’ he complained. ‘Leave me with the dreams of my youth.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“To Stuart on his 10th birthday, with Faith that he will achieve greatness, Hope that this will bring him joy, and Love that now surrounds him will continue all his days.’ The words Faith, Hope and Love were picked out in orange felt pen. Despite the inscription’s peculiar syntax, it was clear Winser worked as hard on the gift as he did on his chess.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“Against anyone of any ability, to win you needed to pursue many lines of thought rather than just one, to light small tactical fires all over the board (a skill I had noticed Emanuel Lasker had in abundance). But by playing with more imagination, you might also have to open yourself to the possibility of defeat. Greater complexity could mean greater danger: anyone unwilling to accept that risk was destined to chess mediocrity.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess

“focused on the game, seeing it as part of the Darwinian struggle to come first in life.”
― Stephen Moss, The Rookie: An Odyssey through Chess