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.

Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

I learned early on that one of the secrets to campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I did that in college. I did it when I carried my papers. I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me. If I knew them, I would call them by name, but even if I didn't I would still speak to them. Before long, I probably knew more students than anybody in the university, and they recognized me and considered me their friend.

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

I've owned about 18 airplanes over the years, and I've never bought one of them new.

A computer can tell you down to the dime what you've sold, but it can never tell you how much you could have sold.

One thing my and mother and dad shared completely was their approach to money - they just didn't spend it.