From the time that I can remember I worked to make money - either baby-sitting or one year wrapping gifts at a department store at Christmas so I could have my own money.

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

Maybe Christmas the Grinch thought doesn't come from a store.

America is a country ready to be taken in fact longing to be taken by political leaders ready to restore democracy and trust to the political process.

But trust me if I lived in the '80s I would definitely be the one going to the record stores.

People aren't just paying more to fill their gas tanks or when they pay for their heating bills for their home they are paying more at the grocery store on air travel and for many other daily expenses.

I did work at a mall in college - I think retail/customer service is just one of the most hideous jobs in the world. So I always try to be extra nice when I go into a store. But malls are part of our culture if you watched any teen comedy in the '80s. it's clear that malls are where we live!

We're competing with everything: the beach the mall bookstores. Libraries are in a transition right now caught between two forces the old ways and technology. Libraries are under a lot of pressure to provide both.

Standing beneath the white light of an Apple store is like standing on a Stanley Kubrick movie set. His '2001: A Space Odyssey' predicted Jobs and a future where technology was our friend. Kubrick of course didn't like what he saw. And occasionally I have my doubts.

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

The point of that is if you look at Walgreen's history they've always been pioneers in the application of technology. They're the only drugstore chain that I know to have their own satellite.

All images generated by imaging technology are viewed in a walled-off location not visible to the public. The officer assisting the passenger never sees the image and the officer viewing the image never interacts with the passenger. The imaging technology that we use cannot store export print or transmit images.

My store Wine Library outsells big national chains. How do you think we do it? It started with hustle. I always say that our success wasn't due to my hundreds of online videos about wine that went viral but to the hours I spent talking to people online afterward making connections and building relationships.

Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success.

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions yet there is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a society which has not their own manners.

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

I feel like a little kid who just walked into a candy store. I think that's something to smile about.

I'm better with my hands and I always loved the slightly romantic idea of starting with bits of wood and being able to create something to sit on to eat from to store your clothes in.

Just about every children's book in my local bookstore has an animal for its hero. But then only a few feet away in the cookbook section just about every cookbook includes recipes for cooking animals. Is there a more illuminating illustration of our paradoxical relationship with the nonhuman world?

There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.

All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.

On the mountains mistakes are fatal. In politics mistakes are wounding emotionally but you recover. Personally wilderness helps me get back in touch with natural rhythms helps me reflect and in the process restore my creativity.

I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel read 2 000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.

Manifesting that order of poetry where we can at last grow up to that which we stored up as we grew.