All I want is to have fun in what I'm doing every day. I don't want to break records. To become the greatest player ever could take me like. . . 10 more years and I don't think I'll still be playing at 31.
I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.
It may look as though two chess players are sitting at the board peacefully calculating possibilities, but in actuality they are seething with a kaleidoscope of emotions.
While it's a great indulgence, it's also very interesting to have three bass players on the same track.
If I would go out against some of these players and see them as their ranking, then I probably would have already lost before I even stepped on the court.
Even all the top players going to Europe to play helps soccer in America, as do all the MLS players like Beckham and all that, they're trying to promote it. At the end of the day it's about getting the younger generation interested at an early age so most of them will move on and play.
I feel I am a players' coach. The only thing that means is I care about my players more than anything.
Five players on the floor functioning as a single unit: team, team, team-no one more important than the other.
Analysis is a glittering opportunity for training: it is just here that capacity for work, perseverence and stamina are cultivated, and these qualities are, in truth, as necessary to a chess player as a marathon runner.
But I think the image that's thrown out on television is a bad image. Because you see players who want to imitate hip-hop stars. And the NBA is taking advantage of the situation.
My players on defense must have a hand-up on every shot. If not, they run sprints.
I don't think I'll ever feel as famous or as popular as I felt when I was a 17-year-old soccer player in Modle. Only about 20,000 people live there and 12,000 of them come to every game. Running onto the pitch each week was just the most fantastic feeling. Nothing can beat that.
I consider myself very much a team player.
I don't know concretely if it's due to superstition, but any time a new rule is implemented into the NBA or a new piece of equipment or a new technology, there is always a transition and adjustment period by players and coaches and anyone involved with the game.
A gifted player, who is not a team player, will ultimately hurt the team.
I think it's a good way to sort of build your career and even when I was a young kid, I did the same thing, I looked at these guitar players, like. . . I was a big fan of Steve Vai, and Al DiMeola, and said "What do those guys do?" and I found out that they went to Berkelee College of music, so I was like "Well, I'm going to go to Berkelee College of Music", and you try to, like, learn from those things, so. . . It's important.
I think I earned the players' respect, and that's the ultimate in life, isn't it? I didn't care if they liked me or disliked me, as long as I had their respect.
For me, Chess is life and every game is like a new life. Every chess player gets to live many lives in one lifetime.
You may knock your opponent down with the chessboard, but that does not prove that you are the better player.
Many players want to make as much money as they can and change teams for ten grand. How is that going to make much difference to their lives?