I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself.

We're all working together; that's the secret.

I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of my biggest contributions to the later success of Wal-Mart.

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

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

You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart's phenomenal success has been that very tendency.