J. C. Penney Quotes

Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.

Too many would-be executives are slaves of routine.

Projection into the future does not create security because the future is not really there. It's a fluid mirage. The only security is merging with The Field, right now.

No matter what his position or experience in life, there is in everyone more latent than developed ability; far more unused than used power.

A store's best advertisement is the service its goods render, for upon such service rest the future, the good-will, of an organization.

I will have no man work for me who has not the capacity to become a partner.

Business is no longer a matter of profits alone. Profits must come through public confidence, and public confidence is given to any merchant in proportion to the service which he gives to the public.

The public is not greatly interested in saving a little money on a purchase at the expense of service.

Our very living is selling. We are all salespeople.

We can serve our customers well only if our buying jobs are right. You cannot sell if you haven't ordered wanted goods into your store.

It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most.

No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized.

Responsibility is always a sign of trust.

No man can climb the ladder of success without first placing his foot on the bottom rung.

Success will always be measured by the extent to which we serve the buying public.

Intelligence is the effort to do the best you can at your particular job; the quality that gives dignity to that job, whether it happens to be scrubbing a floor or running a corporation.

Do not primarily train men to work. Train them to serve willingly and intelligently.

Clearly the secret of happiness...is a variation on the general principle of banging your head against a wall, and then stopping.

No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.

I don't use real people for inspiration.

I don't think I could write about someone I didn't feel some sympathy for.

I suppose the short chapters and differing narrative points of view are quite "cinematic" devices, which came very naturally to me.

If writers stuck to firsthand experience, novels would be pretty limited.

Just because we think of wolves (or the wilderness, or another race) as wild and fierce, doesn't mean there isn't another side to them.

Initially I only decided to try and write a novel because I wasn't getting enough screenwriting work. It wasn't a long-held ambition, and certainly the idea came first.

Gypsies are, to say the least, underrepresented in literature and film.

Because I work quite slowly, I have to keep myself interested over a long research and writing period. So I can't see myself writing about modern middle-class Londoners anytime soon.

Whenever I pick up a book I think, "Tell me something I don't know."

I love research, and in fact it's liberating because you have to create your own world. No one can say "I've just got back from the 1860s, and you got it wrong." Anyway, it's fiction.

I definitely do feel a pull toward people and places that are far from my own life.

...it just goes to show you can't leave anything behind. You bring it all with you, whether you want to or not.

I despise this weakness in myself - this endless one-sided conversation that takes the place of action.

Your contribution is the energy produced in the doing of something, not the end product.

Stress is something that makes you feel you can't be yourself.

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.

Selling is our No. 1 job. Never get away from selling a lot of merchandise personally. The more you sell the more you learn

No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn't

Growth is never by mere chance it is the result of forces working together.

I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity. I was forced to come up the hard way.