"Walton also had an allergy for bureaucracy. He wanted to reduce the number of layers in the company, from chairman to the store associates."

"Walton loved listening to individual employees. He particularly liked talking to the truck drivers—they saw more stores per week than anyone else, and they tended to say what they really thought."

"It never occurred to me that I might lose; to me, it was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"I've always had a strong bias towards action."

"I like to tell a story about one of our early managers who wanted to buy a new car. I told him, 'You're not going to get a raise until you drive that car for five years.'"