The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say. It's terribly important for everyone to get involved. Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.

I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.

Capital isn't scarce; vision is.

I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.

I guess in all my years, what I heard more than anything else was: a mere town cannot support a discount store for very long.

To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.

I learned a lesson which has stuck with me all through the years: you can learn from everybody. I didn't just learn from reading every retail publication I could get my hands on, I probably learned the most from studying what John Dunham was doing across the street