1. “All I expect are wins and to get pleasure from the game. And if someone thinks something about me, if someone’s dissatisfied with something… that’s not my headache. I hope someday I’ll become World Champion – and I’ll make all these people happy. But even if for some reason that doesn’t happen it won’t stop me getting pleasure from chess. I’m sure of that.” – Magnus Carlsen
2. “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.” – Magnus Carlsen
3. “For me right now I think being the world number one is a bigger deal than being the world champion because I think it shows better who plays the best chess. That sounds self-serving but I think it’s also right.” – Magnus Carlsen
4. “I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style.” – Magnus Carlsen
5. “I learnt an enormous amount, but there came a point where I found there was too much stress. It was no fun any more. Outside of the chessboard I avoid conflict, so I thought this wasn’t worth it.” – Magnus Carlsen
6. “My father, a fine chess player himself, has been a massive influence throughout my life.” – Magnus Carlsen
7. “Maybe if I didn’t have the talent in chess I’d find the talent in something else. The only thing I know is that I have talent in chess, and I’m satisfied with that.” – Magnus Carlsen
8. “People ask what my goal is. I don’t have a goal.” – Magnus Carlsen
9. “Without the element of enjoyment, it is not worth trying to excel at anything.” – Magnus Carlsen
10. “I honestly don’t read that much. Obviously I read chess books – in terms of favorites, Kasparov’s ‘My Great Predecessors’ is pretty good.” – Magnus Carlsen
11. “You have to choose the move that feels right sometimes; that’s what intuition is.” – Magnus Carlsen
12. “The most helpful thing I learnt from chess is to make good decisions on incomplete data in a limited amount of time.” – Magnus Carlsen
13. “I don’t think there is a thing like overconfidence in chess. It’s always better to be too confident than too reluctant.” – Magnus Carlsen
14. “Chess only appeals to quite a small minority. It does not have the cachet of a mainstream popular sport.” – Magnus Carlsen
15. “I’ve never been much of a computer guy at least in terms of playing with computers. Actually until I was about 11 I didn’t use a computer for preparing for games at all. I was playing a bit online, was using the chess club mainly. Now, obviously, the computer is an important tool for me preparing for my games.” – Magnus Carlsen
16. “I enjoy hiking and skiing, like most Norwegians. In winter, there will be snow for months on end. In the summer, there are the long evenings to enjoy.” – Magnus Carlsen
17. “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.” – Magnus Carlsen
18. “I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.” – Magnus Carlsen
19. “I am not some sort of freak. I might be very good at chess but I’m just a normal person.” – Magnus Carlsen
20. “I was lucky enough to attend schools where they were understanding about when I needed to go abroad to play chess. Of course, socially it is important to go to school and interact with people your own age.” – Magnus Carlsen
21. “You need to have that edge, you need to have that confidence, you need to have that absolute belief that you’re the best and that you’ll win every time.” – Magnus Carlsen
22. “It’s nice to be financially secure. Apart from that, I really don’t care too much about money.” – Magnus Carlsen
23. “I don’t look at computers as opponents. For me it is much more interesting to beat humans.” – Magnus Carlsen
24. “Contrary to many young colleagues I do believe that it makes sense to study the classics.” – Magnus Carlsen
25. “Some people think that if their opponent plays a beautiful game, it’s OK to lose. I don’t. You have to be merciless.” – Magnus Carlsen
26. “What I admired most about him (Fischer) was his ability to make what was in fact so difficult look easy to us. I try to emulate him.” – Magnus Carlsen
27. “I’m not really into rap.” – Magnus Carlsen
28. “There wasn’t any particular player I modeled my game after. I tried to learn from everyone and create my own style. I studied past players. Truth be told I never had a favorite player. It’s just not my nature to go around idolizing people. I just go try to learn.” – Magnus Carlsen
29. “I feel sorry for players who are always lying awake at night, brooding over their games.” – Magnus Carlsen
30. “It’s easy to get obsessed with chess. That’s what happened with Fischer and Paul Morphy. I don’t have that same obsession.” – Magnus Carlsen
31. “I respect Anand. But I don’t fear him. Am pleased with all the arrangements here.” – Magnus Carlsen
32. “Not winning a tournament is not an option for me, unless it’s no longer theoretically possible – then of course winning becomes impossible. But up to that point, not winning is just not an option.” – Magnus Carlsen
33. “If you want to get to the top, there’s always the risk that it will isolate you from other people.” – Magnus Carlsen
34. “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.” – Magnus Carlsen
35. “I played like a child.” – Magnus Carlsen
36. “It’s just not my nature to go around idolizing people.” – Magnus Carlsen
37. “He (Kasparov) has an extreme capacity for work, extreme determination to win and extreme perfectionism.” – Magnus Carlsen
38. “I spend hours playing chess because I find it so much fun. The day it stops being fun is the day I give up.” – Magnus Carlsen
39. “It’s easy for me to get along with chess players. Even though we are all very different, we have chess in common.” – Magnus Carlsen
40. “Self-confidence is very important. If you don’t think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in the crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent. You see the opportunity but also greater limitations than you should. I have always believed in what I do on the chessboard, even when I had no objective reason to. It is better to overestimate your prospects than underestimate them.” – Magnus Carlsen
41. “I can’t count the times I have lagged seemingly hopelessly far behind, and nobody except myself thinks I can win. But I have pulled myself in from desperate [situations]. When you are behind there are two strategies – counter-attack or all men to the defenses. I’m good at finding the right balance between those.” – Magnus Carlsen
42. “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.” – Magnus Carlsen
43. “One of the things that first attracted me to chess is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people – men of the stature of Garry Kasparov, the former world champion, who was my part-time coach.” – Magnus Carlsen