It's like heroin: You do a little and you want a little bit more. Raising prices is the easy way.

When you hire good people, and you provide good jobs and good wages and a career, good things are going to happen.

Our attitude has always been that if you hire good people and provide good wages and good jobs and more than that - if you provide careers - that good things will happen to your company. I think we can say that that has been proved by the quality of people that we have and how they have built our organization.

It doesn't do Costco any good if nobody can afford to buy anything.

You take an educated gamble. If you don't occasionally make a mistake, you're not doing your job.

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.

I think that most of the people running companies today are motivated and pay is a small portion of the motivation.