Magnus Carlsen Chess Quotes

#1. I used to take someone with me for the chemotherapy so I could do jokes. You always try and find something absurd.

Jennifer Saunders

#2. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#3. I love 'Airplane,' the 'Naked Gun' films; everything the Zucker brothers have done is just awesome.

Drake Bell

#4. With two kids it's hard to find down time to write so I often write during their nap time.

Tori Spelling

#5. I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.

Magnus Carlsen

#6. I think everybody has to be better, right from me out. Everybody has to step up their games for us to be successful here. I've been lucky to be on some good teams over the years and that's what it takes, everybody contributing night after night.

Ed Belfour

#7. I spend hours playing chess because I find it so much fun. The day it stops being fun is the day I give up.

Magnus Carlsen

#8. The Nanjing games are homework by Garry Kasparov and me, [ ... ] Today's game was provided by Garry.

Magnus Carlsen

#9. Contrary to many young Colleagues, I do believe that it makes sense to study the Classics.

Magnus Carlsen

#10. Let us seize, friends, our opportunity from the day as it passes.

Horace

#11. People grow up listening to all kinds of stories, but that doesn't mean they all want to spend their whole lives studying them.

Amy Reed

#12. It's easy for me to get along with chess players. Even though we are all very different, we have chess in common.

Magnus Carlsen

#13. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#14. You're a good date," he said.
"You thought of it as a date?"
He nodded. "From the beginning.

Robyn Carr

#15. Right now I'm really happy with how things are going with my chess career, so I'm not thinking of doing anything else.

Magnus Carlsen

#16. I played like a child.

Magnus Carlsen

#17. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#18. My mother did not think mustaches were feminine. I don't know why.

Cynthia Kadohata

#19. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#20. Chess only appeals to quite a small minority. It does not have the cachet of a mainstream popular sport.

Magnus Carlsen

#21. I don't consider myself a particularly young chess player. I have been playing in the best tournaments in the world since I was 16 years old. In other sports, if you have been playing for seven years, you are not a young prodigy any more. You're one of the pros.

Magnus Carlsen

#22. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#23. My father, a fine chess player himself, has been a massive influence throughout my life.

Magnus Carlsen

#24. Why anyone, by dying, should thereby be declared beyond criticism, innocent of wrongdoing, suddenly filled with virtue and above reproach escapes me.

Dick Cavett

#25. The idea that the Lord had given us a present, that the world is a gift from God ... well, the amount of stuff, back then, that the Lord was giving away was limited. We do not have dominion.

David Attenborough

#26. You've seen one dark, rugged werewolf, you've seen them all. That's what I told myself the first time I laid eyes on Zack Armstrong. I was wrong. Dead wrong. And now that presumption has come back to bite me in the ass.

S.J. Harper

#27. The great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered.

Samuel Johnson

#28. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#29. I am not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I'm just a normal person.

Magnus Carlsen

#30. We have a snap of my dad wearing blue eye shadow, which I would always make fun of. When I was about 12 and first started wearing lipstick, my dad would ask, 'Are you wearing makeup?' I would say back, 'You're wearing more makeup there than I am!'

Georgia May Jagger

#31. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#32. 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.

Magnus Carlsen

#33. I honestly don't read that much. Obviously I read chess books - in terms of favorites, Kasparov's 'My Great Predecessors' is pretty good.

Magnus Carlsen

#34. At that time a senator who was on the Joint Committee of Atomic Energy said rather quietly, 'You know, we're having a little problem with waste these days.' I didn't know what he meant then, but I know now.

David R. Brower

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

Magnus Carlsen