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

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.

Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company.

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.

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

If somehow a proclamation were made that C.E.O.'s could only make a maximum of $300,000 a year, you would not have any shortage of very qualified men and women seeking the jobs.

We've always been in favor of improved wages for workers. When you have a strong middle class, they want to buy more stuff at Costco.