But they are also better, our competitors are better because Wal-Mart exists.

Where we have been incorrect in what we have done, then I think we have an obligation to settle.

So I think we have an obligation with our size to make sure that we are open to what people have to say to us because the people who criticize us, they're not all mean-spirited.

Many of them are doing it because they are concerned about smart growth.

And the greeter is what sets the tone for this company and I've been on TV a little bit this morning.

Where we're not wrong or where the cost of settling is so much that it is totally disproportionate to the harm or the error that we made, we're not going to settle.

I don't think we'll win every election.

It's hard for us in our stores to be a leader in technology.

In some ways, people forget about average working people, and how they live their lives.

Because the truth is our wages are really competitive and they're good.

More and more, more and more digital, in particular, I think you'll see in our stores next year, as we start combining these digital products and they interface with each other, you'll see that represented in Wal-Mart.

Retailing, it's always true that there is some items that I wish we had a lot more of like the iPod and there is some items I wish we had a lot less of.

If we take care of the customers and associates and grow the business, Wall Street will be pleased.

I expect that our associates will walk with a little more bounce in their step and understand that this company is behind them and has respect for them.

We've got to figure out a way to cause communities to also want them, the political, organized bodies.

Our customer base is not necessarily a leader, an early adopter.

I would guess that any criticism about Wal-Mart could have some element of truth with 1,500,000 people.

One of the things that strikes me is so many of the critics are people whose lifestyle doesn't change when the price of fuel changes, or if they keep a Wal-Mart store out of their area.

I think in some ways we have allowed other people to set the agenda. Other people to define who we are.

But they are also better, our competitors are better because Wal-Mart exists.

Don't say it's because of benefits, because our benefits are good.

We want to set a tone going into our fiscal year that starts Feb. 1, that Wal-Mart Stores is going to be aggressive in taking care of customers, taking care of our associates, communications and merchandising.

You know, we opened a record number of stores last year.

The beauty of this country and what people participate in is the competitive nature that we allow to exist and the fact is that we are better because we have great competitors.

People aren't going to talk about it except me and that is communication and the visits I have personally had in our meetings with our store managers saying if you do these things you will be terminated, period.

I just think that it's maybe fashionable today to try to take individual actions and individual failures and take the broadest possible brush and try to paint a company.

There are going to be some people who never want Wal-Mart. That's OK.

And what I am trying to say to them that through our ads and through our discussions is if you don't want us in your community, that's your choice, but don't say it's because of wages.

I look up to a lot of people, but outside of my parents, I've never really had a mentor.

My mother was a Sunday school teacher. So I am a byproduct of prayer. My mom just kept on praying for her son.

The pay of many of our top executives in big hundred companies in the U.K. is outrageous and even obscene.

I really try to focus on organizations, twofold, one that help people and/or beings that don't have other means of help. Particularly if they're hospitalized children, sick children, children that don't have homes, children that can't go to school, you know that's the future of this country and the future of this planet.

You cannot separate the composition from the life of the moment. It is all one thing, to be decided in a split second while you're living through it.

If we're for one another, we're feminists. The rest is semantics.

Regrettably, I do sometimes have to fight a tendency to be bitchy.

If you want to see me cry, just come to a photo shoot.

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life.

No, I'm not! I'm not a tomboy! I love my makeup! That's not true! I'm not a tomboy!

Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: 'What are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved?'

Bobby Darin was one of the first to take black musicians on the road with his band, and there were places that didn't want him to play, and he stood up to it.

It's my job to get us in good plays, or more importantly, out of bad plays. That's what I did.

Nothing worth having comes easy.

If nothing else in life, I want to be true to the things I believe in, and quite simply, to what I'm all about. I know I'd better, because it seems whenever I take a false step or two I feel the consequences.

Throughout high school, I peddled my eggs, had a vendor stand at the local curb market - precursor to today's farmers' markets - and competed in 4-H contests and interscholastic debate.

I actually think that history has fed off the restlessness of cyber space, of kind of the frantic, segmented nature of the way we lead our lives. People want to be connected.

It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but friction.

Old Arabic books, printed in Bulaq, generally have a broad margin wherein a separate work, independent of the text, adds gloom to the page.

Don't ever criticize yourself. Don't go around all day long thinking, 'I'm unattractive, I'm slow, I'm not as smart as my brother.' God wasn't having a bad day when he made you... If you don't love yourself in the right way, you can't love your neighbour. You can't be as good as you are supposed to be.