Sourced

• The greatest obstacle to peace in the Middle East is American aid to Israel. If we were to take a hands-off position, the two sides would reach an arrangement in a year or two: Israel would know that it had no choice, and the Arabs would know that if pushed to the economic wall, Israel would launch the much-hoped-for Armageddon.

Attributed

• The chess story of Mikhail Tal is about the act itself of straining against the leash of limited human imagination to create mammoth combinations on the chessboard. During his games, Tal wished to go where no chess player had ever gone before, choosing the middlegame as his métier for creative expression. He burned energy profligately. A chain-smoker and a heavy drinker, Tal pulsated nervous energy, pacing like a caged tiger in between moves. And as a young man with those famous fierce, hooded eyes and that imposing hooked nose, he bulldozed all before him.

About Boris Spassky

• There are more pictures of Spassky standing before audiences of chess enthusiasts, who are rocking backwards in their chairs with delighted laughter, than there are of him sitting at a chessboard. He can act the clown while maintaining a dignified reserve - a gift unique among the humorless lot in the chess world.

• The Cary Grant of the 64 Squares.

• At a strictly personal level, if not to the manor born, Spassky was certainly to the gracious manner born.