I was always intrigued when I was growing up, and then in engineering school, with the idea of a perpetual machine. I think of the Wal-Mart culture as that.

Wal-Mart, we've been known for many years - back to the days of when Sam Walton started the company - we've been known for basics. The basic need of families and people across America. Wal-Mart was known as the place for basics.

I think every responsible public board at every board meeting should be discussing succession. And, of course, Walmart has a very mature board: our chairman Rob Walton and other members. So succession is an ongoing. I think when I first joined the board of directors, it was discussed then. And it's discussed at every board meeting continually.

I actually think it's better I started by being close to customers. That foundation early on helped me later when I went into logistics and other kinds of management.

If you go back to the first single-cell form of life, it clearly possessed the capacity to receive, to utilize, to store, to transform, and to transmit information.

So it's like starting over again, but I look forward to the challenge.

After spending 460 days as a hostage, I did emerge a fundamentally changed person. But I think, like everyone does as they grow older and probably wiser, I can look back at my earlier life - my history, my mistakes, the joy I felt as a young woman traveling the world - with some objectivity and even some humor.

When a marriage founders, this may well be cause for tremendous sadness, but it's not a failure of spirit or character. People change, their goals and dreams alter, their ideas of themselves grow, or they just meet someone they like better.