I think my greatest usefulness lies in what I've had the opportunity to demonstrate -that the most "hopeless" criminal in existence can be salvaged; … - Caryl Chessman

Chess never has been and never can be aught but a recreation. It should not be indulged in to the detriment of other and more serious avocations.

It's a useful mental exercise. Through the years, many thinkers have been fascinated by it. But I don't enjoy playing... Because it was a game that was born during a brutal age when life counted for little. Everyone believed that some people were worth more than others. Kings. Pawns. I don't think that anyone is worth more than anyone else... Chess is just a game. Real people are not pieces. You can't assign more value to some of them and not others. Not to me. Not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is, anyone who looks on to the world as if it is a game of chess, deserves to lose."

<nowiki>[</nowiki>Capablanca<nowiki>]</nowiki> wanted to change the rules already, back in the twenties, because he said chess was getting played out. He was right. Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorization and prearrangement. It’s a terrible game now. Very uncreative.