“Morphy and Capablanca had enormous talent, they are two of my favorites. Steinitz was very great too. Alekhine was great, but I am not a big fan of his. Maybe it’s just my taste. I’ve studied his games a lot, but I much prefer Capablanca and Morphy. Alekhine had a rather heavy style, Capablanca was much more brilliant and talented, he had a real light touch. Everyone I’ve spoken to who saw Capablanca play still speak of him with awe. If you showed him any position he would instantly tell you the right move. When I used to go to the Manhattan Chess Club back in the fifties, I met a lot of old-timers there who knew Capablanca, because he used to come around to the Manhattan club in the forties – before he died in the early forties. They spoke about Capablanca with awe. I have never seen people speak about any chess player like that, before or since. Capablanca really was fantastic. But even he had his weaknesses, especially when you play over his games with his notes he would make idiotic statements like 'I played the rest of the game perfectly.”

— Bobby Fischer

But then you play through the moves and it is not true at all. But the thing that was great about Capablanca was that he really spoke his mind, he said what he believed was true, he said what he felt.
Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3

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Bobby Fischer 58

American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer 1943–2008

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“It was impossible to win against Capablanca; against Alekhine it was impossible to play.”

Alexander Alekhine (1892–1946) Russian / French chess player, chess writer, and chess theoretician

Paul Keres, quoted in: Bruce Pandolfini (1992) Pandolfini's Chess Complete: The Most Comprehensive Guide. p. 208.

“I honestly feel very humble when I study Capablanca's games.”

Max Euwe (1901–1981) Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author

Source: David Hooper, ‎Kenneth Whyld (1996) The Oxford companion to chess, p. 69

“What was the secret of Morphy's invincibility? I think it was a combination of a unique natural talent and brilliant erudition. His play was the next, more mature stage in the development of chess. Morphy had a well-developed 'feeling for position', and therefore he can be confidently regarded as the 'first swallow”

Paul Morphy (1837–1884) American chess player

the prototype of the strong 20th century grandmaster."
Garry Kasparov (2003). On My Great Predecessors. Gloucester Publishers plc. Vol. 1, p. 43. ISBN 1857443306.
About

“[Capablanca] wanted to change the rules already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorization and prearrangement. It’s a terrible game now. Very uncreative.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3
2000s

“"… Morphy, the master of all phases of the game, stronger than any of his opponents, even the strongest of them…" ~ Alexander Alekhine, in Shakmatny Vestnik, January 15, 1914”

Paul Morphy (1837–1884) American chess player

About

“In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn’t do well. They’d get bad openings. You cannot compare the playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability. Memorization is enormously powerful. Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy and Steinitz. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid of today. Or maybe not, because nowadays when you get the opening advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to play, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It is really deadly, and that is why I don’t like chess any more.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3
2000s

“Anderssen voiced it well when asked why he did not play as brilliantly as usual in his game with Morphy, when he replied: "Morphy will not let me."”

Paul Morphy (1837–1884) American chess player

About
Source: As quoted in Lasker's Chess Magazine https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lasker%27s_Chess_Magazine/Volume_1

“I’ve seen your foot up close.”
Curran pointed to his chest. “I’ve seen it here.” He moved his hand to his jaw. “Here.” He touched the place over his cheek where my kick had cut him. “And here.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“He has a clear style and has had much courage – as in his poem "Babi Yar", a memorial to the Jews murdered by the Nazis. But he is no more than a talented poetaster – which is quite obvious to all but Western journalists – and it would be foolish to consider him as more than a skilful publicist.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1932–2017) Russian poet, film director, teacher

Martin Seymour-Smith, Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 4, pp. 240-1.
Criticism

“I heard Edwin Fischer, who did not mean much to me. I heard another pianist in Berlin who had a big success and I thought he was awful — Mischa Levitzki. Just fingers, and you cannot listen only to fingers. There is a difference between artist and artisan. Levitzki was an artisan. But Ignaz Friedman, who I admired, was a great artist. He had wonderful fingers and a very personal, individual way of playing, even if some of his ideas were very strange to me. He had no hesitation touching up the music. I got annoyed with him at one concert when he changed the basses in Chopin's F minor Ballade. I didn't like that. For some reason he was happier making records than he was on the stage.”

Vladimir Horowitz (1903–1989) American classical pianist and composer

quoted in Harold C. Schonberg, Horowitz: his life and music

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Bobby Fischer 58

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