“Searching for Bobby Fischer” quotes

(1993)
Movie Searching for Bobby Fischer
Title Searching for Bobby Fischer
Year 1993
Director Steven Zaillian
Genre Biography, Drama
Plot – A father discovers his son Josh has a predisposition for chess game, so he decides to let him take lessons from a former great champion. He compares indeed the child to one of the most famous American chess player, Bobby Fisher. Josh so begins his career and very soon the father realizes how the game has turned into an unhealthy passion, which isolates the players from the rest of the world. It's very risky for the child, because he can hardly escape from the success' mechanisms.
All actors – Max Pomeranc, Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Nirenberg, Robert Stephens, David Paymer, Hal Scardino, Vasek Simek, William H. Macy, Dan Hedaya
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  • “- Fred: You know you could give up the game, and that would be all right with me. In fact, I want you to give it up.
    - Josh: But I can't.
    - Fred: Why not?
    - Josh: Because I have to play. I have to.”

    Joe Mantegna - Fred Waitzkin
    Max Pomeranc - Josh Waitzkin
  • “He's not afraid of losing. He's afraid of losing your love. How many ball players grow up afraid of losing their fathers' love every time they come up to the plate?”

    Joan Allen - Bonnie Waitzkin
    [Tag:father, fear, love]
  • “He knows you disapprove of him. He knows you think he's weak. But he's not weak. He's decent. And if you or Bruce or anyone else tries to beat that out of him, I swear to God I'll take him away.”

    Joan Allen - Bonnie Waitzkin
  • “He complained about the TV cameras, about the lighting, about the table and chairs, and the contrast of the squares on the board. His hotel room, he said, had too nice a view. None of this has anything to do with chess of course. But maybe it did. If he won, he'd be the first American world champion in history. If he lost, he'd just be another...” (continue)(continue reading)

    Max Pomeranc - Josh Waitzkin
  • “He's better at this than I've ever been at anything in my life. He's better at this than you'll ever be, at anything. My son has a gift. He has a gift, and when you acknowledge that, then maybe we will have something to talk about.”

    Joe Mantegna - Fred Waitzkin
    [Tag:ability, pride, talent]
  • - Bruce Pandolfini: Do you know what it means to have "contempt" for your opponent?
    - Josh: No.
    - Bruce Pandolfini: It means to hate them. You have to hate them Josh, they hate you.
    - Josh: But I don't hate them.
    - Bruce Pandolfini: Well you'd better start.

    Ben Kingsley - Bruce Pandolfini
    Max Pomeranc - Josh Waitzkin
  • “I'm playing chess with my dad. Chess. It's a game, like Monopoly.”

    Max Pomeranc - Josh Waitzkin
    [Tag:chess, game]
  • “To put your son in a position to care about winning and not to prepare him is wrong!”

    Ben Kingsley - Bruce Pandolfini
    [Tag:learning, winning]
  • “- Bonnie: No. It'd kill him not to play in the park. He loves it.
    - Bruce Pandolfini: It just makes my job harder.
    - Bonnie: Then your job's harder.”

    Joan Allen - Bonnie Waitzkin
    Ben Kingsley - Bruce Pandolfini
  • “Maybe it's better not to be the best. Then you can lose and it's ok.”
    Max Pomeranc - Josh Waitzkin
  • “Play. Never play the board, always the man. You've gotta play the man playing the board. Play me. I'm your opponent, you have to beat me. Not the board, beat me.”

    Laurence Fishburne - Vinnie
  • “You have a good heart. And that's the most important thing in the world.”

    Joan Allen - Bonnie Waitzkin
  • “He didn't teach you how to win, he taught you how not to lose. That's nothing to be proud of. You're playing not to lose, Josh. You've got to risk losing. You've got to risk everything. You've got to go to the edge of defeat. That's where you want to be, boy - on the edge of defeat.”

    Laurence Fishburne - Vinnie
    [Tag:defeat, losing, risk]
  • “What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it's a science. It's neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art.”
    Ben Kingsley - Bruce Pandolfini
    [Tag:art, chess, game]
  • “- Bruce Pandolfini: Your son creates like Fischer. He sees like him, inside.
    - Fred: You can tell this by watching him play some drunks in the park?
    - Bruce Pandolfini: Yes. You want to know what I want. I'll tell you what I want. I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared.”

    Ben Kingsley - Bruce Pandolfini
    Joe Mantegna - Fred Waitzkin
    [Tag:ability, chess]
  • “- Bruce Pandolfini: Bobby Fischer held the world in contempt.
    - Josh Waitzkin: Well, I'm not him.
    - Bruce Pandolfini: You're telling me.”

    Ben Kingsley - Bruce Pandolfini
    Max Pomeranc - Josh Waitzkin
    [Tag:chess, contempt]
Highlights