The Joys of Chess

From Vladimir Nabokov's novel The Defense (upon which the movie The Luzhim Defense is based):

The doctor...spoke of the fact that all around them was a bright, free world, that chess was a cold amusement that dries up and corrupts the brain, and that the passionate chess player is just as ridiculous as the madman inventing a perpetuum mobile or counting pebbles on a deserted ocean shore. "I shall stop loving you," said his fiancee, "if you start thinking about chess--and I can see every thought, so behave yourself." "Horror, suffering, despair," said the doctor quietly, "those are what this exhausting game gives rise to."