You destroy the initiative of the working people if they don't feel they have a fighting chance to be a part of the American Dream.

When employees are happy, they are your very best ambassadors.

There was a proposal in California that would keep out Wal-Mart but allow Costco. You opposed it. Are you nuts? That's true: I always oppose these kinds of things. Competition makes us better. Some of our best stores have a Sam's Club next door.

Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business.

You just can't get too focused on worrying about what's going to happen in the next quarter. You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.

It doesn't do much good to have a quality image, whether it's with the facility or whether it's with the merchandise, if you don't have real quality people taking care of your customers.

You could raise the price of, say, a bottle of ketchup to $1.03 instead of $1, and no one would know. Raising prices just 3% per product would add 50% to your pretax income. Why not do it? It's like heroin: You do a little and you want a little bit more. Raising prices is the easy way.