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“Every older AA shudders when he remembers the names of persons he once condemned; people he confidently predicted would never sober up; persons he was sure ought to be thrown out of AA for the good of the movement. Now that some of these very persons have been sober for years, and may be numbered among his best friends, the old-timer thinks to himself, ‘What if everybody had judged these people as I once did? What if AA had slammed the door in their faces? Where would they be now?’”

“My local meetings are big on this spot-check reminder: you get what you get; it’s what you do with it that counts.”

“The great art of living is to make the best of things as they are.”

“Sometimes, the only place on earth that makes any sense to me is a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“The alcoholic is in no greater peril than when he takes his sobriety for granted.”

“Every day, every meeting, there’s something more to learn.”

“Often simplicity yields to complexity as the human mind grasps a great revelation, and places its own particular interpretation upon it. All too often the revelation becomes lost in the maze of human ideas, interpretations, and suggestions. Thus have great movements risen, flourished for a season, and died. But AA has steadily progressed through the labyrinth of complexity, carefully avoiding luring temptations of wealth, professionalism, and fame as a healer of one of mankind's most deadly diseases. Dr. Bob who responded to that original phone call, and heard and accepted the message from Bill, has left ringing in our ears, the vital admonition: ‘Keep it simple.’”

“Let us of AA ... resolve that we shall always be inclusive and never exclusive, offering all we have to all, save our title. May all barriers be thus leveled.”

“If we fail to ‘repair,’ we can only impair.”

“There are AA emotions and attitudes that transcend language.”

“Our sobriety should be founded on ‘unselfish selfishness’ ... It’s not sound, we have been told, to try to stay dry for the sake of a wife or a sweetheart or someone else dear to us.”

“Let all of us AAs, whether we be trustees, editors, secretaries, janitors, or cooks -- or just members -- ever recall the unimportance of wealth and authority as compared with the vast import of our brotherhood, love, and service.”

“In our Twelve Traditions we have set our faces against nearly every trend in the outside world.

We have denied ourselves personal government, professionalism and the right to say who our members shall be. We have abandoned do-goodism, reform and paternalism. We refuse charitable money and prefer to pay our own way. We will cooperate with practically everybody, yet we decline to marry our Society to anyone. We abstain from public controversy and will not quarrel among ourselves about those things that so rip society asunder -- religion, politics and reform. We have but one purpose: to carry the AA message to the sick alcoholic who wants it.

We take these attitudes not at all because we claim special virtue or wisdom; we do these things because hard experience has told us that we must -- if AA is to survive in the distraught world of today.

“If we dwell on the past or the future, we put ourselves back into the torture chamber. We stop changing. Boredom, pain, and futility take over again. We have been ... We will be ... We no longer are. The 24-hour program disappears. Anxiety, anger, and a desire for revenge replace spiritual experience. Awareness and surrender cease. We are on a dry drunk.”

“A new chapter has once again started in my life -- a chapter that has no ending, a chapter that I did not write, but a chapter with many characters.”