Phil Knight

There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.

When I took the entrepreneurship class at Stanford, the first lecture was about an entrepreneur and his personality. They described it as being different than a businessman, who is an overall scientific manager.

If there was no Bill Bowerman, there would have been no me. He had about as much of an impact on my life as any one person could have. He taught me about competition and ingrained it in me. He taught me not to praise ordinary performances.

There is no drama like the drama on the athletic field.

The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.

I didn't say I'm walking away. I said I was stepping down as chairman. I won't walk away. I'll be carried away.

Meeting sports athletes that are the best in the world is a thrill to this day.

Every businessman, or every person who has a passion for his work, is torn for the time spent at work and the time spent with your family.

A shoe dog is somebody that really loves shoes, and that was me. I was a runner... that became important to me, and it's been with me ever since.

The thing that got us going early was the running boom. And then, I think, we rode the Jordan bit, which then kind of crossed us over into the pop culture.

We could see that he was a charismatic guy who jumps over the moon and is very competitive, but nobody could have predicted what he would become to our culture.

At first, we couldn't be establishment, because we didn't have any money. We were guerrilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit. But, as we became No. 1 in our industry, we've had to modify our culture and become a bit more planned.