"The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business."

"If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies"

"There's a metaphor Vincent Eades likes to use: "If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies."

"Any business today that embraces the status quo as an operating principle is going to be on a death march."

"Work should be personal. For all of us. Not just for the artist and entrepreneur. Work should have meaning for the accountant, the construction worker, the technologist, the manager and the clerk."

"People around the world, they want the authentic Starbucks experience."

"Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible."

"When it comes to Starbucks, I take every threat very personally."

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, . . . begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. —GOETHE"

"People have come to me over the years and said to me: 'I admire the culture of Starbucks. Can you come give a speech and help us turn our culture around?' I wish it were that easy. Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it's based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions."

"But the reasons against going to New Orleans--that spicy southern city known for jazz and Mardi Gras and hospitality--were the very reasons we had to go."

"There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust."

"When we love something, emotion often drives our actions."

"Life is a sum of all your choices,” wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures, hopefully inspiring others along the way."

"After the storm, many citizens left New Orleans to live elsewhere, but those who stayed were determined to rebuild. They loved their city."

"When you’re in a hole, quit digging!"

"All great companies have passed through bad years that forced soul-searching and rethinking of priorities. How we deal with them will be the litmus test."

"To be an enduring, great company, you have to build a mechanism for preventing or solving problems that will long outlast any one individual leader."

"Every step of the way, I made it a point to underpromise and overdeliver. In the long run, that's the only way to ensure security in any job."

"My biggest concern is that America is drifting towards mediocrity and that people don't recognize - and by people I'm meaning Washington - don't recognize the sense of urgency and the fact that I don't think this is a crisis anymore. I think it's an emergency."

"It's ironic that no matter where I go, I meet people from Brooklyn. I'm proud of that heritage. It's where I'm from, who I am."

"When you give up,' said a slim older man whose home we rebuilt, 'you might as well lay down and die.' It was obvious that we weren't just giving people back their homes, but also restoring a sense of dignity."

"Be bold, but be fair. Don't give in. If others around you have integrity, too, you can prevail"

"Starbucks has changed the rules of engagement for the music industry."

"This is not his job, I thought, it's his passion."

"This may sound a bit naive, but I got here by believing in big dreams."

"Just. Plain. [Fu*king.] Grilled. Swordfish."

"In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise, less than 10% of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down."

"For Starbucks, there will be no shortage of the highest-quality arabica beans. I suspect that for some others there could potentially be a problem, not in the near term, but over time."

"I do think - as self-serving as it sounds - that I was the right person, given the very, very strong headwind we had from the economy and our own issues, to come back and rewrite the future of the company."

"I think growth covers up mistakes."

"Post-9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience."

"Managing and navigating through a financial crisis is no fun at all."

"Managing a business, small or large, today requires an extremely disciplined, thoughtful approach with regard to the pressure that people are under."

"I love being the underdog."

"I despise research. I think it's a crutch."

"The response to the Starbucks brand has been phenomenal in our international markets."

"At an early age, my mother gave me this feeling that anything is possible, and I believe that."

"Even though people are under economic pressure, they still want to support those brands with values that are compatible with their own."

"There's this myth that has been exacerbated by others that Starbucks means a $4 cup of coffee, which is not true."

"Turning a culture around is very difficult to do because it's based on a series of many, many decisions, and the organization is framed by those decisions."

"Beverages have to be created. And they're created by looking at what trend is in, say, the fashion industry - what color's hot right now."

"I'm not losing any sleep over Dunkin Donuts."

"If Vancouver did not succeed as Starbucks from '87 on, our entire international business, which is now thousands of stores and a significant amount of growth and profit, may not have existed."

"Our history is based on extending the brand to categories within the guardrails of Starbucks."

"I'm not as interested in what you make as I am in what you're passionate about. What business are you really in?"

"When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture."

"I never took classic business classes in college, so I don't have the background that any of the people running large companies have."

"In many places where coffee is grown, deforestation is a major issue."

"I think what we're lacking in society, not only in the U.S. but also around the world, is to find heroes once again and to celebrate these kind of people."