147 Bobby Fischer Quotes

Bobby Fischer quotes

1. Tactics flow from a positionally superior game.

2. Best by test.

3. I have never opened with the QP - on principle.

4. Patzer sees a check, gives a check.

5. They have nothing on me, those guys. They can't even touch me. Some people rate them better than me. That really bugs me. They think that no Americans play chess. When I meet those Russian patzers I'll put them in their place.

6. (Capablanca) wanted to change the rules already back in the 1920's, saying that chess was getting played out. And he was right. Now it's completely dead, it's a joke. It's all just memorization and prearrangement. It's a very uncreative game now.

7. I usually never stay at the board after a game. Especially against Spassky. I made a dumb suggestion and he refuted it instantly! I know I'm going to have to play him some day and it was really stupid to look like such a jerk in front of him.

8. Americans like a winner. If you lose, you're nothing. I'm going to win, though. It's good for the match that Spassky has a plus score against me. We've met five times. He's won three times and we've drawn twice. But I'm a stronger player and a long match favors me.

9. I'll play a lot, stake matches. Not like the Russians. They win the championship and then hide for three years. Every few months, anyway twice a year, I'd like to get up a purse and meet a challenger. It's good for the game, keeps up interest in chess, and it's good for the bank account. I want to get some money together. Like take professional football. All these athletes making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Contracts, endorsements. If there's room for all of them, there ought to be room for one of me. I mean, after all, I'm a great goodwill ambassador for the United States!

10. I have a minus score (against Spassky). I lost 3 and drew 2. I was better than him when I lost those games. I pressed for the win. My overall tournament record is much better than his. I'm not afraid of him, he's afraid of me.

11. I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

12. Morphy and Capablanca had enormous talent, Steinitz was very great too. Alekhine was great, but I am not a big fan of his. Maybe it's just my taste. I've studied his games a lot, but I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. Everyone I've spoken to who saw Capablanca play still speak of him with awe. If you showed him any position he would instantly tell you the right move. When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties - before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since. Capablanca really was fantastic. But even he had his weaknesses, especially when you play over his games with his notes he would make idiotic statements like 'I played the rest of the game perfectly.' But then you play through the moves and it is not true at all. But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt.

13. Yeah, there are too many Jews in chess. They seem to have taken away the class of the game. They don't seem to dress so nicely, you know. That's what I don't like.

14. What is going on is I am being persecuted night and day by the Jews, for telling it like it is. They want to put me in jail, they're robbing me of everything I have, they're continuously lying about me. I've had enough of this shit. The latest thing they've done is I had some stuff in storage back in Pasadena for 12 years, spent a fortune on storage fees, a fortune on safes... and these goddamn Jews in America have just gone and grabbed it all.

15. The United States is a farce controlled by dirty, hook-nosed, circumcised Jew bastards.

16. No lie is too big for a Jew, no lie is too small... Jews live by lying, and die with coming in contact with the truth.

17. The Jews have been hardened against Christ, against decency for thousands of years... They're gonna have to be annihilated, Eugene.

18. America is totally under control of the Jews, you know. I mean, look what they're doing in Yugoslavia... The Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright) and the Secretary of Defense (William S. Cohen) are dirty Jews.

19. Maybe the ultimate thrill for a Jew is to eat a Christian child for dinner in sausage meat, ritually murdering him.

20. They are subhuman. They are the scum of the Earth. When you talk about Jews, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of humanity.

21. Hopefully the Jews will get it in the neck soon. They have alot of enemies all over the world. These biological weapons are getting very cheap and easy to deliver. I'm optimistic, I'm hoping that Washington DC will be wiped out.

22. I think that the Jews would like to eat me... I think they've got eating Fischer on their minds. They hate my guts. Or maybe they love my guts.

23. I'm very concerned because I think the Jews want to drive the elephants to extinction because the trunk of an elephant reminds them of an uncircumcised penis. I'm absolutely serious about that... Jews are sick, they're mental cases.

24. Circumcision is a crime. The Jews say they know better than millions of years of evolution... The only road to sanity for the Jews is to admit that circumcision is a crime.

25. The Jews are not fighters, they have miserable bodies. They're cunning like rats.

26. I was in Japan a couple of months ago, I saw a preview for the movie Pearl Harbor. And they showed the Japanese airplanes coming in to bomb Pearl Harbor, and I applauded. Nobody else in the theater applauded.

27. Look at all I've done for the US. Nobody has single-handedly done more for the US image than me, I really believe this. When I won the World Championship in '72, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country. I turned all that around single-handedly, right? But I was useful then because there was the Cold War, right? But now I'm not useful anymore, you see, the Cold War is over, and now they want to wipe me out, steal everything I have, put me in prison, and so on.

28. Look at the history of the (United States). The history of the country is basically what? Get something for nothing, right? Take, kill. They invaded the country, they robbed the land of the American Indians, they killed almost all of them off... That's the history of the United States. A despicable country.

29. Jews are anti-social, destructive, intolerant, mean-spirited, deceitful, et cetera. They wish to destroy, rule and kill, rob whoever gets in their way. To facilitate them getting what they want, they have developed a perverted, unnatural, destructive, evil lifestyle. Even though they live off the non-Jews as parasites, they still hate them and wish to destroy them. Jews hate nature and the natural order, because it's pure and beautiful, and also because it's bigger and stronger than they are, and they feel that they can not fully control it. Nature's beauty and harmony stands in stark contrast to their squalidness and ugliness, and that makes them hate it all the more. Jews are destroyers. They are anti-humans. The anti-human Jew hates and wants to destroy all non-Jews. He will also destroy even other Jews who are less destructive and evil than he is, if they get in his way. Apparently, the wickedness of the Jew is genetically based. Jews are destroyers. They are anti-humans. By the act of circumcision, the Jew shows his hatred towards nature and the natural order. By this bloody, cruel, senseless act, he shows his cruelty and sadism, and that he will stop at nothing to obtain his ends. Surely the Jews are also behind the Islamic circumcision, which serves as an ideal cover and distraction from their own wickedness in this regard. Jews are truly anti-human and anti-nature. Jews are intensely selfish, intolerant and anti-social, et cetera. They are full of hate, greed, malice, et cetera. Naturally, other people, i.e. the non-Jews, don't like being bulldozed aside, robbed and murdered by the Jews, and will sooner or later resist. That is where the lies and deceit of the Jews come into place.

30. The United States is an illegitimate country, just like Israel. It has no right to exist. That country belongs to the Red man, the American Indian... It's actually a shame to be a so-called American, because everybody living there is a usurper, an invader taking part in this crime, which is to rob the land, rob the country and kill all the American Indians.

31. The United States is evil. There's this axis of evil. What about the allies of evil - the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers.

32. I'm not as soft or as generous a person as I would be if the world hadn't changed me.

33. I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all.

34. I have a crazy quirk, Eugene. I like to say what I think. And if you're gonna work for the Jews, you can no longer say what you think. You can't say the holocaust never happened, for example. That is an absolute no-no. You can't say that circumcision is a crime. There are so many things you cannot say once you get on the Jewish bandwagon. ... There used to be a lot of people like me, but little by little the Jewish spirit seems to be conquering all.

35. I would rather be free in my mind, and be locked up in a prison cell, than to be a coward and not be able to say what I want.

36. I grew up with the concept of freedom of speech. So I'm too old, it's too late for me to adjust to the new world, the new world order.

37. I read a book lately by Nietzsche and he says religion is just to dull the senses of the people. I agree.

38. I don't like American girls. They're very conceited, you know. In Europe they're more pleasant.

39. Sometimes girls write me. One girl in Yugoslavia sent me a whole slew of love letters. I don't know how she got my address. She was in a crowd watching me play. She says when I left there the stars fell out of the sky over Yugoslavia, or something like that.

40. They're all weak, all women. They're stupid compared to men. They shouldn't play chess, you know. They're like beginners. They lose every single game against a man. There isn't a woman player in the world I can't give knight-odds to and still beat.

41. Lynda Carter, Wonder Woman, is a beautiful, lovely woman and it broke my heart when she married that dirty Jewish thief. She married a dirty Jewish criminal who got in trouble for some huge scam like all the Jews... Lynda, if you ever leave this Jewish thief, if you've ever had enough, give me a call. Maybe it's not too late for us.

42. I despise the media... They're destroying reality, turning everything into media.

43. You don't learn anything in school. It's just a waste of time. You lug around books and all and do homework. They give too much homework. You shouldn't be doing homework. Nobody's interested in it. The teachers are stupid. They shouldn't have any women in there. They don't know how to teach. And they shouldn't make anyone go to school. You don't want to go, you don't go, that's all. It's ridiculous. I don't remember one thing I learned in school. I don't listen to weakies. My two and a half years in Erasmus High I wasted. I didn't like the whole thing. You have to mix with all those stupid kids. The teachers are even stupider than the kids. They talk down to the kids. Half of them are crazy. If they'd have let me, I would have quit before I was sixteen.

44. You're a good guy. I like you. Twenty thousand will do it.

45. First of all, we have to understand what communism is. I mean, to me, real communism, the Soviet communism, is basically a mask for Bolshevism, which is a mask for Judaism.

46. Chess is life.

47. My sister bought me a set at a candy store and taught me the moves.

48. When I was eleven, I just got good.

49. The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.

50. All that matters on the chessboard is good moves.

51. All I want to do, ever, is play chess.

52. I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves.

53. I like to make 'em squirm.

54. I like the moment when I break a man's ego.

55. There are tough players and nice guys, and I'm a tough player.

56. You can only get good at chess if you love the game.

57. Chess demands total concentration and a love for the game.

58. I give 98 per cent of my mental energy to chess. Others give only two per cent.

59. Your body has to be in top condition. Your chess deteriorates as your body does. You can't separate body from mind.

60. I prepare myself well. I know what I can do before I go in. I'm always confident.

61. Psychologically, you have to have confidence in yourself and this confidence should be based on fact.

62. People have been playing against me below their strength for fifteen years.

63. It's just you and your opponent at the board and you're trying to prove something.

64. Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponent's mind.

65. I play honestly and I play to win. If I lose, I take my medicine.

66. You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances.

67. That's chess, you know. One day you give a lesson, the next day your opponent gives you a lesson.

68. I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it.

69. You know, I can beat all those guys.

70. There's no one alive I can't beat.

71. Let's play. I'm willing to play anywhere.

72. I add status to any tournament I attend.

73. Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

74. If you don't win, it's not a great tragedy - the worst that happens is that you lose a game.

75. Don't even mention losing to me. I can't stand to think of it.

76. Chess is a matter of delicate judgment, knowing when to punch and how to duck.

77. I know people who have all the will in the world, but still can't play good chess.

78. I really love the dark of the night. It helps me to concentrate.

79. It's pretty tough because of all the tension and all the concentration, sitting there hour after hour. It's...exhausting.

80. Theoretically, I think the game is a definite draw.

81. I wanted to give them something to think about when they prepare for me in future tournaments. (on why he played 1.d4, 1.c4 & 1.Nf3 a few times)

82. It's just a matter of throwing in a few sacrifices, then checkmate! (on playing against the Sicilian Dragon)

83. For the first lesson, I want you to play over every column of Modern Chess Openings, including the footnotes. And for the next lesson, I want you to do it again.

84. Concentrate on material gains. Whatever your opponent gives you take, unless you see a good reason not to.

85. My opponents make good moves too. Sometimes I don't take these things into consideration.

86. It's like taking a five hour final examination.

87. Different people feel differently about resigning.

88. It doesn't pay to be petty like they are.

89. I don't care! I don't have to show anybody my games just because they're a big shot!

90. The Russians have held my title for ten years and they're going to be in for it when I win the Championship. They're going to have to wait and play under my conditions.

91. I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.

92. Maybe I should publish the book. The world is coming to an end anyway! (on My 60 Memorable Games)

93. I don't need them to correct anything for me, even with the help of computers. Of course the book has mistakes, but I can correct them myself. They changed my things on purpose. (on changes made to the new edition of My 60 Memorable Games)

94. You know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot of book and memorization you know.

95. The old chess is too limited. Imagine playing cards, black jack for example, and every time the dealer has the same starting hand you have the same starting hand. What's the point?

96. I don't play the old chess. But obviously if I did, I would be the best.

97. I don't play the old chess any more. The old chess is dead, it's been played out.

98. I'm finished with the old chess, it's rotten to the core

99. I love chess, and I hate the Russians because they've almost ruined it.

100. The Russians have fixed world chess. (On the Curacao Candidates tournament, quoted in Sports Illustrated, August 1962)

101. All my games are real.

102. There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.

103. ...People don't know how utterly corrupt it [chess] is, and has been for many years...Just like when you go to watch a wrestling match, right? Saturday night wrestling. They are very good wrestlers, but anybody with half a brain knows it's almost all prearranged.

104. Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi have absolutely destroyed chess by their immoral, unethical, prearranged games. These guys are really the lowest dogs around, and if people knew the truth about them, they would be held in more contempt than Ben Johnson, the runner, and they're going to know the truth when I do this book!

105. I was going to do a book about the first prearranged Karpov-Kasparov match, '84-'85. But the goddamn Jews have stolen my entire file on that.

106. One of the reasons the God-damn Jews hate me so much, is that all my games are real. Nothing is pre-arranged, its all over the board, and if I play great, I play great. If I plunder my Queen, I'm looking to mate him too. That's real, y'know. Not like the God-damn Russian Jew players. It's all staged.

107. You know, up until now they [the Jews] have more or less been satisfied to kind of attack my name, to exploit my name, to violate my rights, to violate my intellectual property rights, to violate my contracts; now, this is a new level, they're just stealing my belongings. Stuff worth millions, tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars, they just went and stole it.

108. The US government and American Jewry are virtually interchangeable.

109. There is no United States as people think of it. It's just a puppet in the Jew's hands. It's a plaything for the Jews.

110. They're lying bastards. Jews were always lying bastards throughout their history. They're a filthy, dirty, disgusting, vile, criminal people.

111. The Jews don't want me to succeed in any of my projects. They want me to be a failure.

112. They want to utterly destroy my reputation for all time. Jews are vicious rats.

113. Because I beat the Jews in chess. I beat them badly too, I beat them very badly... Plus, on top of that I exposed them as cheating in chess! As outright crooks. Plus, I exposed the holocaust as never happened. Totally made up. The Jews are goddamn liars. There is not a shred of truth to this holocaust.

114. Morphy was really the world champion. That's also a Jewish conspiracy, because he was a Catholic and they tried to say he wasn't the world champion so they could promote Steinitz, who was a Jew, as the first world champion... There was a huge conspiracy against Paul Morphy... He has no stamp! Paul Morphy has no stamp. This Jewish bitch I Love Lucy. She got a stamp! And nobody compared to Paul Morphy. All kind of Jewish actors, comedians, doctors... but Paul Morphy has never gotten a stamp. Obviously the Jews have an insane hatred toward him.

115. Almost everyone who has been around me turned out to be a secret agent working for the Jews, working for the CIA... The Jews have planted so many of their Jew agents and CIA rats all around me. So many people... Girlfriends, lawyers, everybody almost, turned out to be working for the CIA and the Jews! Unbelievable but true.

116. My basic thesis is that the Jews are a criminal people, and the Jews completely control the United States, and the Jews are using the United States as a vehicle to take over the World.

117. I'd like to see all Jews be lesbians and homos. That would solve the problem with the Jews, there'd be no more Jews, no?

118. They are jealous of me in every way! They're jealous of my talent, they're jealous of my looks, they're jealous of my potency, they're jealous of my chess! They're just jealous bastards. They are ugly, they are jealous...I was over in Israel, I went to a change room a few times. I saw their penises...they are pitiful, they are small, they are just...dry, you know, all of them circumsized. Just very sad. I understand they're jealous.

119. When leaving Japan for Iceland on March 23. 2005, Bobby Fischer was asked about his arrest in Japan. He responded: 'This was not an arrest. This was a kidnapping. This was all cooked up by Bush and Koizumi. They are all war criminals. They should be hung.'

120. Our mind is all we've got. Not that it won't lead us astray sometimes, but we still have to analyze things out within ourselves.

121. Most people are sheep, and they need the support of others.

122. I had some personal problems, and I started listening to a lot of radio ministers. I listened every Sunday all day, flipping the dial up and back. So, I heard just about every guy on Sunday. And then I heard Mr. Armstrong, and I said, 'Ah, God has finally shown me the one, I guess.'

123. Well, I kind of split my life into two pieces. One was where my chess career lies. There, I kept my sanity, so to speak, and my logic. And the other was my religious life. I tried to apply what I learned in the church to my chess career too. But I still was studying chess. I wasn't just 'trusting in God' to give me the moves.

124. I know the Bible says, 'Vengeance is God's.' I'm not trying to 'get' those guys. And I'm not interested in getting my money back. I'm trying to protect others. I just want to make sure that nobody gets ripped off mentally. (on the Worldwide Church of God)

125. You know, I didn't improve my living standard one bit either. It wasn't like I just didn't help my mom. I didn't do anything for myself either. You know I don't even have a car. About the only luxury I got was quite a few $400 suits. I got ten maybe. But still what I'm saying is that that is still not a lot of money spent on me considering all the money I made. It wasn't like I was living high on the hog and neglecting my mom, but she's living real poor in a crummy apartment in England. She doesn't even have a bathroom. I just saw her a few months ago. I have to help my mom now. She's an old woman. She could soon be gone and here I was giving money so that Rader and these guys can have their parties in Beverly Hills. This whole thing is so sick.

126. They cleaned my pockets out frankly. I have some money left, but not that much. I've got some assets. It's amazing they didn't get everything. Now my only income is a few royalty checks from my books. I was really very foolish, but I thought I was doing what I had to do. When I sent those checks off, I really didn't have the slightest qualms, no regrets, not the slightest. I don't really regret it that much, to tell you the truth, even now.

127. I can remember times coming home from a chess club at four in the morning when I was half asleep and half dead and forcing myself to pray an hour and study (the Bible) an hour. You know, I was half out of my head-stoned almost.

128. Church members shouldn't let themselves be confused. They begin not trusting in their own judgment, and then they're finished. That's a terrible, terrible thing. First, they get conducted in with a nice sweet program, no money, everything free, free, free. And then they get sucked in, and suddenly a few lies get mixed in. They are told that their human nature is wicked and these nice people who gave them all these things wouldn't be lying to them, would they? And then I think once you start distrusting your own mind you're finished. From there you just get more and more confused. Once you think that your own mind is not your friend any more-your own conscience and your own mind is not your friend-then I think you are on your way to insanity. You have been stripped bare. All your defenses are gone.

129. They constantly use the words eccentric, eccentric, eccentric, weird. I am boring. I am boring!

130. Is it against the law to kill a reporter?

131. They like to write only bad things about me.

132. His chess technique is nearly a miracle. In their youth, only a few players could handle the endgame so precisely. Only two such players are known to me, Smyslov and Capablanca.

133. I would not like to defend or justify Bobby Fischer. He is what he is. I am asking only for one thing. For mercy, charity. If for some reason it is impossible, I would like to ask you the following: Please correct the mistake of President Francois Mitterrand in 1992. Bobby and myself committed the same crime. Put sanctions against me also. Arrest me. And put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer. And give us a chess-set.

134. I don't want him in my cell. I want a chick in my cell.

135. Fischer has become more virulently anti-Jewish since ceasing to play competitive chess. In denying himself chess, therefore, is he, in fact, denying his own Jewishness? As Cockburn writes: 'No player has ever been such a walking advertisement for the Freudian interpretation of chess.'

136. Bobby Fischer Site containing videos, stories, games, quotes, and sounds clips of the chess legend

137. Article on Fischer and links to interviews and other material

1. Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind.

2. “It’s just you and your opponent at the board and you’re trying to prove something.”

3. I have nothing to do with politics. I came here [Yugoslavia] to play chess and nothing else.

4. I was never invited to the White House.

5. It's the fault of the chess players themselves. I don't know what they used to be, but now they're not the most gentlemanly group. When it was a game played by the aristocrats it had more like you know dignity to it. When they used to have the clubs, like no women were allowed and everybody went in dressed in a suit, a tie, like gentlemen, you know. Now, kids come running in their sneakers. Even in the best chess club-and they got women in there. It's a social place and people are making noise, it's a madhouse.

6. She and I just don't see eye to eye together. She's a square. She keeps telling me that I'm too interested in chess, that I should get friends outside of chess, you can't make a living from chess, that I should finish high school and all that nonsense. She keeps in my hair and I don't like people in my hair, you know, so I had to get rid of her.

7. Nothing is so healing as the human touch.

8. When I win, I'll put my title on the line every year, maybe even twice. I'll give players a chance to beat me.

9. Well, you know, in America everybody is interested in making the dollar fast. In Yugoslavia no matter how much you hustle you're not going to get rich, so you might as well play chess.

10. Americans really don't know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.