chess Quotes

“Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.”

“Like a good chess player, Satan is always trying to maneuver you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop.”

“The elephant prepared a game of chess. Amos thought and thought before making a move. “

″‘Hi there, Alice,’ T. R. Wexler said. ‘Ready for a game of chess?‘”

“He moved the pawn next to his queen’s pawn, the one in front of the bishop. He often did this. ‘Is that one of those things? Like the Sicilian Defense?’ she asked. ‘Openings.’ He did not look at her; he was watching the board. ‘Is it?’ He shrugged. ‘The Queen’s Gambit.‘”

“She decided not to take the offered pawn, to leave the tension on the board. She liked it like that. She liked the power of the pieces, exerted along files and diagonals.”

“The world of Kentucky Chess was astonished this weekend by the playing of a local girl, who triumphed over hardened players to win the Kentucky State Championship. Elizabeth Harmon, a seventh-grade student at Fairfield Junior, showed “a mastery of the game unequaled by any female” according to Harry Beltik, whom Miss Harmon defeated for the state crown.”

“All his life, Randal was able to remember that scene in its every last detail, the torch making a ragged core of light in the heart of the crowding gloom, and in it, the intent faces of the two men, and their intent hands, and between them, on the magpie-chequer of the board, the two armies of fantastic shapes that marched and pranced and wavered to and fro...”

“It’s good to be queen.”