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“Self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets man against man, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need only investigate ourselves.”

“It is not stupid to accept myself and others complete with our imperfections. It would be stupid not to.”

“Think, think, think before you make that angry comment or mail that bitter letter. How important is it?”

“Serenely remarking to his attendant, ‘I think this is it,’ Dr. Bob passed out of our sight and hearing November sixteenth at noonday. So ended the consuming malady wherein he had so well shown us how high faith can rise over grievous distress. As he had lived, so he had died, supremely aware that in his Father's House are many Mansions.”

“I never thought that a day like today would be a high point of my life. All that excitement that I used to crave and strive for was not there. I don’t have to live on the edge anymore. And tonight as I lay my head on my pillow I can’t think of one single thing that I did today that I have to go back and redo and make amends for.”

“My miracle occurred when I became willing to go to any lengths to take action. Like the trapeze artist, it wasn’t the knowledge of it being there -- it was the action of letting go.”

“The first 100 members of this Fellowship, who hammered out the Twelve Steps, knew what they were doing. They could have made it two steps or ten steps or twenty-five steps, but they didn't. I don't think they put anything in they didn't think they needed. They were working the whole program, not because they were saints, but because they were drunks who wanted to get well. I have no reason to suppose I'm any less sick than they were; I have no reason to suppose I need any less of the program than they did.”

“Today’s sobriety cannot be chugalugged ... It has to be sipped, one taste at a time, so that each drop of serenity can be fully savored.”

“It’s only when I stop thinking about it, stop trying to run the show, that my life may become as God intends.”

“It doesn’t do too much good to carry the Big Book on your arm all day if you don’t open it up and read it.”

“We are beginning to see new values in AA. We perceive in our midst a spiritual realm, which can be little disturbed by the distractions of wealth or self-serving egocentricity.”

“As long as I am acting in a loving and caring manner, I am not responsible for how others react. This frees me from pleasing people at my own emotional expense.”

“We AAs shall have to hang together -- or else hang separately!”

“While we need not alter our truths, we can surely improve their application to ourselves, to AA as a whole, and to our relation with the world around us. We can constantly step up ‘the practice of these principles in all our affairs.’”

“The fellowship in AA is unique. Ties are made overnight that it would take years to develop elsewhere. No one needs a false front. All barriers are down. Some who have felt outcasts all their lives now know they really belong. From feeling as if they were dragging anchor though life, they suddenly sail free before the wind.”