- Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin: There's a pattern emerging, a definite pattern. Not Turati. I repeat that game. I've beaten him. And his moves are repeated, repeated, repeated moves. I must keep track... of every second. Every second I must keep track of, every second.
- Natalia Katkov: It sounds like such a lonely battle.
- Anna: This is your king. He's the most important piece on the board, and he knows it. But his moves are limited - one square at a time. He's weighed down by his own pomp and circumstance. The queen, she's more agile. She's brave, and she's cunning. And she can move as far as she likes. Your opponent will fear her enormously.
- Vera: He's defiled you already, hasn't he? That's why you're rushing this ridiculous marriage. You're carrying his child.
- Valentinov: As a so-called child prodigy, he was a curiosity. Under my charge, he became a phenomenon. I spent many years nurturing him in the hopes that one day he would become world champion, but in the end I had to accept the fact that, at heart, he was merely a contestant - not a winner.
- Valentinov: If you were to devote your moves to putting him under pressure at the board, and I were to concern myself with putting him under pressure away from it, then...