From Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds and John Eidinow...
"In a letter to a chess-playing acquaintance about the 1962 Olympiad, in Bulgaria, he describes a game he played against the great Mikhail Botvinnik. Ultimately the game was drawn when Fischer fell for a Botvinnik trap (after which, according to Fischer, Botvinnik puffed out his chest and strode away from the table like a giant). But Fischer had held the initiative for much of the game, and in the letter he is gleeful about the discomfort Botvinnik appeared to suffer, mocking the Soviet for changing color and looking about to expire."
"In all sports, confidence is important. In chess, a game, which unlike all those others, is entirely in the mind, with no trained limbs to take over when the brain is in crisis, a collapse of confidence is terminal. Above all, across the board the opponent can sense this mental bleeding, as clearly as a boxer can see blood oozing from his adversary's head."
Quoting Vladimir Nabokov: "There is nothing abnormal about a chess player being abnormal. This is normal."
Quoting a character in a novel: "Do you play chess ? A person who doesn't play chess isn't a person."
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