"Most everything I've done ...": Sam Walton, Made in America (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 81.

"At the start we were so amateurish, and so far behind....": Sam Walton, quoted in Vance H. Trimble, Sam Walton (New York: Dutton, 1990), p. 93.

"Sam's philosophies were really pretty basic ...": David Glass, Interview with author, September 9, 2002.

"What really drove Sam was that competition across the street ...": Helen Walton, quoted in Sam Walton, Made in America (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 23.

"Most of the best ideas came from our competitors' stores....": David Glass, Interview with author, September 9, 2002.

"He [Walton] genuinely believed that all of the best ideas came from the bottom up ...": David Glass, Interview with author, September 9, 2002.

"In the whole Wal-Mart scheme of things, the most important contact ...": Sam Walton, Made in America, p. 128.

"I could never leave well enough alone ...": Sam Walton, Made in America, pp. 27, 47–48.

"What we were obsessed with was keeping our prices below everybody else's....": Sam Walton, Made in America, pp. 50–51.

"It's amazing that our competitors didn't catch on to us quicker and try to stop us....": Sam Walton, Made in America, pp. 125–126.

"We could really do something with our key strategy ...": Sam Walton, Made in America, p. 109.

"It is much easier to be successful if you have a pretty good competitor ...": David Glass, Interview with author, September 9, 2002.

"Walton's genius was to recognize that if you have four small towns ...": Philip Kotler, Interview with author, August 13, 2002.

"There are far more small businesses that go out of business ...": David Glass, Interview with author, September 9, 2002.

"In Wal-Mart stores they don't want many brands....": Philip Kotler, Interview with author, August 13, 2002.

"If you are going to show the kind of double-digit comparable store sales increases ...": Sam Walton, Made in America, p. 61.

"The first information age CEO....": John Huey, "Discounting Dynamo," in Time, Builders & Titans (Time Magazine, special series on Time.com Website.).

"Pouring into Bentonville over phone lines ...": Sam Walton, Made in America, p. 213.

"Some people call Wal-Mart an information company ...": Philip Kotler, Interview with author, August 13, 2002.

"We used to go through a spiel ...": David Glass, Interview with author, September 9, 2002.

"By making goods cheap and available ...": New York Times, excerpted from 2001 Wal-Mart annual report.