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.
We need strong personalities and only one world champion to attract sponsors.
My shirt and my hat always say 'World Champion' in some language. English, Spanish, Chinese, 'Star Wars' language, which is also known as Aurebesh, mermaid language.
I trained and trained and went up against Kurt, then being a world champion in '94, and after that I did Tommy's tour and then my tour and all this stuff and just trying to deal with it all. And now, I've just kind of backed off a little.
A player cannot become a world champion overnight. To become a champion, a player has to sacrifice a lot and to devote much of his time practising and training.
I'm proud of my triumphs. I've dreamed of being world champion, I've had some difficult times and they've made me value the good times.
I think I could have become an outstanding professional baseball player, but I don't think I could have reached the heights that I have in football - being one of the very top players in the game, being a world champion.
I didn't have to win, and winning wasn't important to me. Being world champion wasn't important to me. What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.
Whatever luck I had, I made. I was never a natural athlete, but I paid my dues in sweat and concentration and took the time necessary to learn karate and become world champion.
All these nice people saying I'm going to be world champion won't make me any faster, you have to believe it yourself.