I'm sure that being an applicant from the American School in Vienna helped get me into all seven colleges I applied to.

Some of the best opportunities in the world are the most obvious ones.

Typically you see the home office think up some great program but doesn't think through implementation at the store level.

When a company goes bankrupt, you as a company have absolutely no say whatsoever as to what happens.

The way to really create justice for workers in America is to create job growth.

One of the people who most influenced me was Ben Shapiro, a marketing professor at the business school. He used to rant and rave and pound his fist: 'It's all about the customers!' And he was right. He was also right that, at that time, retailing was devoid of really talented people; he urged me to go in that direction.

Forget 'branding' and 'positioning.' Once you understand customer behavior, everything else falls into place.