Queen's Gambit Quotes

It's an entire world of just 64 squares. I feel safe in it. I can control it; I can dominate it. And it's predictable. So, if I get hurt, I only have myself to blame.

She was alone, and she liked it. It was the way she had learned everything important in her life.

The strongest person is the person who isn’t scared to be alone.

Chess isn't always competitive. Chess can also be beautiful.

When we come to face the entangled vagaries on the chessboard of our life, let us not shrink from using the queen’s gambit to disentwine predictable hassles or diffuse incendiary plots if we want to take control of our being and make our dreams come true, transparent, and straightforward. (”Life with a sea view”)

She had flirted with alcohol for years. Now it was time to consummate the relationship.

My experience has taught me that what you know isn’t always important.” “What is important?” “Living and growing,” Mrs. Wheatley said with finality. “Living your life.

It is foolish to run risk of going mad for vanity's sake.

And what did being women have to do with it? She was better than any male player in America. She remembered the Life interviewer and the questions about her being a woman in a man's world. To hell with her; it wouldn't be a man's world when she finished with it.

Her mind was luminous, and her soul sang to her in the sweet moves of chess.

Listening to the two of them, she had felt something unpleasant and familiar: the sense that chess was a thing between men, and she was an outsider. She hated the feeling.

I could have done this at eight.

After a moment a simple thought came to her: I’m not playing Benny Watts; I’m playing chess.

There had been a few times over the past year when she felt like this, with her mind not only dizzied but nearly terrified by the endlessness of chess.

Beth walked slowly home and replayed the game. Her mind was as lucid as a perfect, stunning diamond

Life without any wonder left in it is flat and stale.

My tranquility needs to be refurbished,

Benny, I like the way your hair looks.

There are events in life from which we learn our most profound lessons and sometimes those events are the ones of which we are most ashamed.

What you know is not always important.

Some day, Prince Kheldar, you will fall in love," the queen said with a little smirk, "and the twelve kingdoms will stand around and chortle over the fall of so notorious a bachelor.

So,” Libby said sagely, “chess.” “Chess,” I repeated. “The move—it’s called the Queen’s Gambit. Whoever’s playing white puts that second pawn in a position to be sacrificed, which is why it’s considered a gambit.” “Why would you sacrifice a piece?” Libby asked. I thought about billionaire Tobias Hawthorne, about Toby, about Jameson, Grayson, Xander, and Nash. “To take control of the board,” I said.

What are we if we are not words?

Centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again .... Now's the time to be alive-- to see it happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure.

she felt herself resisting it as it opened up in her mind, hating to let go of the pleasant ballet they had danced together.

You’ve been the best at what you do for so long you don’t know what it’s like for the rest of us.

I am no longer a wife, except by legal fiction.

She felt in herself an inexhaustible ability to find strong, threatening moves.

Normally she fled from any human encounter,

How old were you when you started playing?”, she asked. “Five. I was District Champion at seven. I hope to be a World Champion one day.” “When?” “In three years.” “You'll be sixteen in three years”, she said, “If you win, what will you do afterward?”. He looked confused. “I don't understand”, he replied. “If you're a World Champion at sixteen, what will you do with the rest of your life?” He still looked confused. “I don't understand”.

Torak's dead." "Really?" Aunt Pol said. "Have you seen his grave? Have you opened the grave and seen his bones?

She had three thousand dollars in her savings account; she was no longer a virgin; and she knew how to drink.

The waitress who handed her a menu was dressed in a black miniskirt and fishnet hose, but she had the face of a geometry teacher.

Do they have a chess club ? I want to join." "Oh," the girl said. "I don't think they have anything like that. You can try out for junior cheerleader.

I didn’t see what he was doing,” Beth said, picturing the move where his queen took her pawn. It was like putting your tongue against an aching tooth.

For a moment she wanted to say something about the expensiveness of room service, even measured in pesos, but she didn’t. She picked up the phone and dialed six. The man answered in English. She told him to send a margarita and a large Coke to 713.

furnace.

What she did was at bottom shockingly trivial, but the energy of her amazing mind crackled in the room for those who knew how to listen.

My experience has taught me that what you know isn’t always important.” “What is important?” “Living and growing,” Mrs. Wheatley said with finality. “Living your life.

Someone had said that when computers really learned to play chess and played against one another, White would always win because of the first move. Like tick-tack-toe.

She liked the power of the pieces, exerted along files and diagonals. In the middle of the game, when pieces were everywhere, the forces crisscrossing the board thrilled her.

is foolish to run the risk of going mad for vanity’s sake.

It takes a strong woman to stay by herself, In a world where people will settle for anything, Just to say they have something.

Suddenly everyone was quiet, and they all began to look at Beth. She felt rising in her a hatred as black as night.

Set it up and think it out.” “I don't have to set it up to think it out.

A Girl Mozart Startles the World of Chess.

Do you still like my hair?

My experience has taught me that what you know isn’t always important.” “What is important?” “Living and growing,” Mrs. Wheatley said with finality. “Living your life.

She had flirted with alcohol for years. It was time to consummate the relationship.

But none notice that she is moving with difficulty through a world that is tipped on its side, or see that she fears falling off its edge.

It would be nice to have a cheeseburger. She laughed wryly at herself; a cheeseburger was what an American of a type she thought she would never be craved when travelling abroad.

My experience has taught me that what you know isn’t always important.” “What is important?” “Living and growing,

Beth was in high school now, and there was a chess club, but she did not belong. The boys in it were nonplused to have a Master walking the hallways, and they would stare at her in a kind of embarrassed awe when she passed.

Sometimes being with Benny was like being with no one at all. For hours at a time he would be completely impersonal. Something in her responded to that, and she became impersonal and cool herself, communicating nothing but chess.

What I wanted to tell you about Philidor was that Diderot wrote him a letter. You know Diderot?" "The French Revolution?" "Yeah. Philidor was doing blindfold exhibitions and burning out his brain, or whatever it was they thought you did in the eighteenth century. Diderot wrote him: 'It is foolish to run the risk of going mad for vanity's sake.' I think of that sometimes when I'm analyzing my ass over a chessboard.

Katherine and the children have made paper boats and are floating them on the moat to see which one stays up the longest, contriving always that Edward’s should be the winner. He is learning from an early age that the world conspires magically to favor him. After all, he will be King one day and that is the way of things for kings.

Despite the Mexican reputation for gaiety and abandon, it was a quiet place, and the crowd seemed more like the crowd at a museum.

She had felt generally unpleasant from the time their plane landed in Mexico, as though she were on the verge of developing an illness that she never quite got,

Everything he was doing was obvious, unimaginative, bureaucratic.

Openings.” He did not look at her; he was watching the board. “Is it?” He shrugged. “The Queen’s Gambit.

what Beth felt inside herself was as wonderful as anything she had ever felt in her life.

It is foolish to run the risk of going mad for vanity’s sake.

She could do her own training. She had been training alone for months. She finished off the last of her coffee. She had been training alone for most of her life.

There was a certain relief in seeing him make the move. She had been forced to consider several other replies; now the lines from them could be dropped from her mind.

In her room that night she could not get to sleep because of the way the games kept playing themselves over and over in her head long after she had stopped enjoying them.

It is foolish to run the risk of going mad for vanity’s sake.’ I think of that sometimes when I’m analyzing my ass off over a chessboard.

There seemed to be a kind of insulation around her that kept everything at a distance.

You’ve got to get your ass moving, girl,” Jolene said. “You got to quit sitting in your own funk.

What if she had already done it to herself? What if she had shaved away from the surface of her brain whatever synaptic interlacings had formed her gift?

I don’t know how good I really am.” “I know,” he said. “You’re the best there is.

It is foolish to run the risk of going mad for vanity’s sake.’ I think of that sometimes when I’m analyzing my ass

Let the fucking house fall down.

Chess certainly isn't all there is”, Mrs. Wheatley continued. “It's what I know”, replied Beth.

Peter Piper picked up a peck of pickled peppers.

All of them?

Don't you get bored sometimes?”, she asked. “What else is there?”, Benny replied.

With the pawn gone, she was open to rook-bishop mate because of the bishop on the open diagonal.

Beth had learned not to believe in God during her time in Methuen’s chapel, and she never prayed. But now she said, under her breath, Please God let me play Beltik and checkmate him.

She stayed where she was, not worrying about time, until she had it penetrated and understood. Then she got up, washed her face again and walked back into the gym. She had found her move.

The thought of picking up the phone and calling someone seemed distant now. There was a barrier between herself and whatever world the phone would attach her to; she could not penetrate the barrier.

His stories were not always new, but there was in the telling of them a special kind of magic. His voice could roll like thunder or hush down into a zepherlike whisper. He could imitate the voices of a dozen men at once; whistle so like a bird that the birds themselves would come to him to hear what he had to say; and when when he imitated the howl of a wolf, the sound could raise the hair on the backs of his listeners' necks and strike a chill into their hearts like the depths of a Drasnian winter. He could make the sound of rain and of wind and even, most miraculously, the sound of snow falling.

Do you do problems?” “No.” She had tried a few as a child, but they did not interest her. The positions did not look natural. White to move and mate in two. It was, as Mrs. Wheatley would have said, irrelevant.

She would have to bring her rook up to protect. He would take the knight with his queen, and if she took the bishop, the queen would pick off the roof in the corner with a check, and the whole thing would fall apart.

Someone had left a lipstick on the back of the toilet. She went to the bathroom and studying herself in the mirror, reddened her lips carefully. She had never worn lipstick before. She was beginning to feel very good.

If you win, what will you do afterward?” He looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.” “If you’re World Champion at sixteen, what will you do with the rest of your life?” He still looked puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said.

It was a beautiful day, with fresh leaves on the trees and an impeccably blue sky. She felt herself expand, relax, open up. She was going to beat him. She was going to beat him soundly. The continuation she found on the nineteenth move was a beautiful and subtle wonder. It sprang to her mind full-blown, with half a dozen moves as clear as if they were projected on a screen in front of her, her rook, bishop and knight dancing together down in his king’s corner of the board.

That night at eleven she was able to get undressed by being careful. She had found a pair of pajamas earlier and she managed to get them on and to pile her clothes on a chair before getting into bed and passing out. No one had come back by morning. She made scrambled eggs and ate them with two pieces of toast before having her first glass of wine. It was another sunny day. In the living room she found Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” She put it on. Then she began drinking in earnest.

biting her lip sometimes in excitement over a dazzling move or a subtlety of position, and at other times wearied by a sense of the hopeless depth of chess, of its endlessness, move after move, threat after threat, complication after complication.

No one had come back by morning. She made scrambled eggs and ate them with two pieces of toast before having her first glass of wine. It was another sunny day. In the living room she found Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” She put it on. Then she began drinking in earnest.

…sentada ante el tablero que había comprado en Purcell en Kentucky estaba en realidad ante un abismo, sostenida solo por el extraño equipamiento mental que la había dotado para este elegante y mortal juego. En el tablero había peligro por todas partes. No se podía descansar.

Beth was White, and she played pawn to king four, hoping for the Sicilian. She knew the Sicilian better than anything else. But Klein played pawn to king four and then fianchettoed his king’s bishop, setting it over in the corner above his castled king. She wasn’t quite sure but thought this was the kind of opening called “Irregular.

feeling somehow that she might fall from a precipice, that sitting over the chessboard she had bought at Purcell’s in Kentucky, she was actually poised over an abyss, sustained there only by the bizarre mental equipment that had fitted her for this elegant and deadly game. On the board there was danger everywhere. A person could not rest.

She had heard of the genetic code that could shape an eye or hand from passing proteins. Deoxyribonucleic acid. It contained the entire set of instructions for constructing a respiratory system and a digestive one, as well as the grip of an infant’s hand. Chess was like that. The geometry of a position could be read and reread and not exhausted of possibility. You saw deeply into this layer of it, but there was another layer beyond that, and another.

What if she had already done it to herself? What if she had shaved away from the surface of her brain whatever synaptic interlacings had formed her gift? She remembered reading somewhere that some pop artist once bought an original drawing by Michelangelo—and had taken a piece of art gum and erased it, leaving blank paper. The waste had shocked her. Now she felt a similar shock as she imagined the surface of her own brain with the talent for chess wiped away.

She had heard of the genetic code that could shape an eye or hand from passing proteins. Deoxyribonucleic acid. It contained the entire set of instructions for constructing a respiratory system and a digestive one, as well as the grip of an infant's hand. Chess was like that. The geometry of a position could be read and reread and not exhausted of possibility. You saw deeply into the layer of it, but there was another layer beyond that, and another, and another.

From Venice to Rome, Paris to Brussels, London to Edinburgh, the Ambassadors watched, long-eared and bright-eyed. Charles of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, fending off Islam at Prague and Lutherism in Germany and forcing recoil from the long, sticky fingers at the Vatican, cast a considering glance at heretic England. Henry, new King of France, tenderly conscious of the Emperor's power and hostility, felt his way thoughtfully toward a small cabal between himself, the Venetians and the Pope, and wondered how to induce Charles to give up Savoy, how to evict England from Boulogne, and how best to serve his close friend and dear relative Scotland without throwing England into the arms or the lap of the Empire. He observed Scotland, her baby Queen, her French and widowed Queen Mother, and her Governor Arran. He observed England, ruled by the royal uncle Somerset for the boy King Edward, aged nine. He watched with interest as the English dotingly pursued their most cherished policy: the marriage which should painlessly annex Scotland to England and end forever the long, dangerous romance between Scotland and England. Pensively, France marshalled its fleet and set about cultivating the Netherlands, whose harbours might be kind to storm-driven galleys. The Emperor, fretted by Scottish piracy and less busy than he had been, watched the northern skies narrowly. Europe, poised delicately over a brand-new board, waiting for the opening gambit.

The games she was playing were serious, workmanlike chess played by the best players in the world, and the amount of mental energy latent in each move was staggering. Yet the results were often monumentally dull and inconclusive. An enormous power of thought might be implicit in a single white pawn move, say, opening up a long-range threat that could become manifest only in half a dozen moves; but Black would foresee the threat and find the move that canceled it out, and the brilliancy would be aborted. It was frustrating and anticlimactic, yet—because Benny forced her to stop and see what was going on—fascinating. They kept it up for six days, leaving the apartment only when necessary and once, on Wednesday night, going to a movie. Benny did not own a TV, or a stereo; his apartment was for eating, sleeping and chess.

Every Tuesday, Miss Graham sent Beth down after Arithmetic to do the erasers. It was considered a privilege, and Beth was the best student in the class, even though she was the youngest. She did not like the basement. It smelled musty, and she was afraid of Mr. Shaibel. But she wanted to know more about the game he played on that board by himself. One day she went over and stood near him, waiting for him to move a piece. The one he was touching was the one with a horse’s head on a little pedestal. After a second he looked up at her with a frown of irritation. “What do you want, child?” he said. Normally she fled from any human encounter, especially with grownups, but this time she did not back away. “What’s that game called?” she asked. He stared at her. “You should be upstairs with the others.” She looked at him levelly; something about this man and the steadiness with which he played his mysterious game helped her to hold tightly to what she wanted. “I don’t want to be with the others,” she said. “I want to know what game you’re playing.” He looked at her more closely. Then he shrugged. “It’s called chess.

It was a beautiful day, with fresh leaves on the trees and an impeccably blue sky. She felt herself expand, relax, open up. She was going to beat him. She was going to beat him soundly. The continuation she found on the nineteenth move was a beautiful and subtle wonder. It sprang to her mind full-blown, with half a dozen moves as clear as if they were projected on a screen in front of her, her rook, bishop and knight dancing together down in his king’s corner of the board. Yet there was no checkmate in it or even an advantage in material. After her knight came to queen five on the twenty-fifth move and Benny was forced merely to push a pawn because he could do nothing to defend, she traded rook and knight for rook and knight and brought her king to queen three. Although the pieces and pawns were equal, it was only a matter of counting moves. It would take twelve for him to get a pawn to the eighth rank and queen it, while she could do it in ten. Benny made a few moves, bringing his king out in the hopeless attempt to take off her pawns before she took away his, but even his arm as it moved the king was listless. And when she took his queen bishop pawn, he reached out and toppled his king. There was silence and then quiet applause. She had won in thirty moves. As they were leaving the room Benny said to her, “I never thought you’d let me trade queens.” “I didn’t either,” she said.

What if she had already done it to herself? What if she had shaved away from the surface of her brain whatever synaptic interlacings had formed her gift? She remembered reading somewhere that some pop artist once bought an original drawing by Michelangelo—and had taken a piece of art gum and erased it, leaving blank paper. The waste had shocked her. Now she felt a similar shock as she imagined the surface of her own brain with the talent for chess wiped away. At home she tried a Russian game book, but she couldn’t concentrate. She started going through her game with Foster, setting the board up in the kitchen, but the moves of it were too painful. That damned Stonewall, and the hastily pushed pawn. A patzer’s move. Bad chess. Hungover chess. The telephone rang, but she didn’t answer. She sat at the board and wished for a moment, painfully, that she had someone to call. Harry Beltik would be back in Louisville. And she didn’t want to tell him about the game with Foster. He would find out soon enough. She could call Benny. But Benny had been icy after Paris, and she did not want to talk to him. There was no one else. She got up wearily and opened the cabinet next to the refrigerator, took down a bottle of white wine and poured herself a glassful. A voice inside her cried out at the outrage, but she ignored it. She drank half of it in one long swallow and stood waiting until she could feel it. Then she finished the glass and poured another. A person could live without chess. Most people did. When she awoke on the sofa the next morning, still wearing the Paris clothes she had worn when losing the game to Foster, she was frightened in a new way. She could sense her brain being physically blurred by alcohol, its positional grasp gone clumsy, its penetration clouded. But after breakfast she showered and changed and then poured herself a glass of wine. It was almost mechanical; she had learned to cut off thought as she did it. The main thing was to eat some toast first, so the wine wouldn’t burn her stomach. She kept drinking for days, but the memory of the game she had lost and the fear of what she was doing to the sharp edge of her gift would not go away, except when she was so drunk that she could not even think. There was a piece in the Sunday paper about her, with one of the pictures taken that morning at the high school, and a headline reading CHESS CHAMP DROPS FROM TOURNEY. She threw the paper away without reading the article. Then one morning after a night of dark and confusing dreams she awoke with an unaccustomed clarity: if she did not stop drinking immediately she would ruin what she had. She had allowed herself to sink into this frightening murk. She had to find a foothold somewhere to push herself free of it. She would have to get help.