Nigel Short Quotations

Chess is ruthless: you've got to be prepared to kill people.

A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused.

We have a large underclass in Britain, and a fairly low standard of education. Our best universities are extremely good, but a very significant proportion of the British population that comes out of compulsory schooling with very low standards of education.

Surely, serious problems can't be solved just by talking about them.

Of course I'm not a racist, but I'm certainly right wing, there's no question about that.

Well, Gibraltar is a place which you either love or hate. I quite like it. It's a rock, that is essentially what it is. It's a British colony.

I have traveled all over the world, about 70 countries, and meeting so many foreign people leads to a greater appreciation of their culture.

If your opponent offers you a draw, try to work out why he thinks he's worse off

I play way too much blitz chess. It rots the brain just as surely as alcohol.

I cannot claim to thoroughly enjoy coaching, because it is very hard work if you are even moderately conscientious. Nevertheless it does provide a degree of satisfaction - not to mention a steady income, which is why I do it occasionally.

I am acutely conscious, from vast experience in opens, that guys around, say 2100 or more can definitely play chess and that one often has to work very hard to beat them.

Unlike my esteemed colleague Garry Kasparov, I don't restrict the strength of opposition to Elo

I know that with perfect play, God versus God, Fritz versus Fritz, chess is a draw ...

If chess is a vast jungle, computers are the chainsaws in a giant environmentally insensitive logging company.

Chess is, in essence, a game for children. Computers have exacerbated the trends towards youth because they now have an immensely powerful tool at their disposal and can absorb vast amounts of information extremely quickly.

Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game