Quote of the day

Today's quote is from Jan Hein Donner, the Dutch chess grandmaster. I came across his name as I was watching the movie version of The Discovery of Heaven,the in/famous Harry Mulisch book which I posted about previously. The character Onno Quist in the novel (and film) is based on Hein Donner.
As usual the book was much much better than the movie, but this time the movie was also reflecting the attempt and failure of the book to be a great work of art... It was good, I mean.
Anyway, here is the quote of today:

"The game of chess has never been held in great esteem by the North Americans. Their culture is steeped in deeply anti-intellectual tendencies. They pride themselves in having created the game of poker. It is their national game, springing from a tradition of westward expansion, of gun-slinging skirt chasers who slept with cows and horses. They distrust chess as a game of Central European immigrants with a homesick longing for clandestine conspiracies in quiet coffee houses. Their deepest conviction is that bluff and escalation will achieve more than scheming and patience (witness their foreign policy)."

Hein Donner