"Although we did not attain our goal of increasing earnings at the same rate of sales, our 8.9 percent growth in earnings per share in the fourth quarter represents more than triple the growth rate experienced in the first six months of the year,"

"We are confident our earnings momentum will continue and look forward to reporting another record year in sales and earnings,"

"Jeanne is an outstanding retail and management talent who has developed successful brands and programs in both traditional and online retail channels,"

"It was a solid performance, but we can do better,"

"In a challenging retail environment, I am pleased to report our first year with net earnings in excess of $6 billion and our first-ever quarter with earnings over $2 billion,"

"Our goal for the second half of the year remains double-digit earnings growth,. However, given the current economic environment this will be difficult to achieve, ... We expect earnings growth in the second half will show improvement over the first half of this year as we leverage our sales and market share gains, but the growth may not meet our original goals."

"The potential right now for success at that school is very, very high. Of the 30 kids in my class, about 10 are Hispanic. It's very difficult for me to look at those kids that I'm teaching now and know that statistically there's a good chance some of them will drop out of school."

"The consumer still seems to us to be very cautious and probably will remain so until we see improvement in employment,"

"We're pleased our trend of year-over-year increases in sales and net income continues. We added more than seven billion dollars in sales in the quarter and ended the year strong."

"Texas was a growth area for Wal-Mart,"

"[In addition to his responsibility for Wal-Mart Stores, U.S. A., Menzer will head the divisions responsible for real estate, logistics, information services, benefits, global procurement, financial services, store planning and strategic planning.] John will continue to accelerate changes in the largest segment of our business, ... During the last six years, he transformed Wal-Mart International into a wellorganized, fast-growing and profitable business. Prior to that, as Wal-Marts corporate chief financial officer, John established a solid track record as a business strategist who delivers results."

"We know this because 30 percent of our associates who have our health coverage were uninsured before they started working at Wal-Mart."

"Are you right to want to make sure that the kids of working families have health coverage, even if it's Medicaid? You bet you are."

"These bills discourage companies from offering quality health care at a lower price. Even worse, they won't do a single thing to control the cost of health care for working families or their children."

"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."

"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape."

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

"The soaring cost of health care in America cannot be sustained over the long term by any business that offers health benefits to its employees."

"[In pricing,] we are setting the pace, ... Our back-to-school experience was awesome."

"We are particularly excited about organic food, the fastest-growing category in all of food. It's a great example of how Wal-Mart can appeal to a wider range of customers."

"Roses, roses are always a favorite. It's an expression of love, everybody knows what the rose stands for."

"We can see first-hand at Wal-Mart how many of our customers are struggling to get by, ... Our customers simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities."

"As the economy has slowed customers have become more concerned about price."

"Even with the lingering impacts of the hurricanes, and the impact of higher energy prices, I believe we will have a good holiday season."

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

"Our size causes us, when we do something inappropriate, which is usually done out of stupidity, to come across as being done out of arrogance."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The customers want those Supercenters."

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

"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."

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

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

"If anything, the negative press and the criticism take away the opportunity to feel as good as you can feel about your employment."

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

"If you had all the small businesses who employed 1.5 million people collectively, would there be individual instances of issues?"

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"Or if you have one store manager that makes a bad decision, is that indicative that that is somehow what your company represents? No."

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

"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."

"Because in our clippings I see a lot of articles that are very positive about all the stores that are voted by local communities."

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

"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."