72 Quotes by Magnus Carlsen

Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check.

What I admired most about him [Bobby Fischer] was his ability to make what was in fact so difficult look easy to us. I try to emulate him.

Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it’s OK to lose. I don’t. You have to be merciless.

If you want to get to the top, there’s always the risk that it will isolate you from other people.

You have to choose the move that feels right sometimes; that’s what intuition is.

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

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.

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.

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.