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“Be willing to be willing to follow directions and you will find your life changing in all areas.”

“What matters is what works, not my opinion of what works.”

“If you need a friend who understands, look no further than the rooms of AA and the Big Book. They always hold an answer and some faith for me.”

“The Secret is, there is no Secret! Working the Steps with a sponsor, going to meetings, helping others, and above all, keeping God and sobriety first have kept me sober almost five years now. I always had heard that things in plain sight are the hardest to find!”

“A vast communications net now covers the earth, even to its remotest reaches ... Nothing can matter more to the future welfare of AA than the manner in which we use this colossus of communication. Used unselfishly and well, the results can surpass our present imagination. Should we handle this great instrument badly, we shall be shattered by the ego demands of our own people -- often with the best of intention on their part.”

“From the moment I pulled open the doors to my very first meeting, I felt something different, something good was going to happen. Those doors, which at the time I believed to be the heaviest ever made, allowed me to walk into a new way of life.”

“It should be the privilege, even the right, of each individual or group to handle anonymity as they wish ... Each individual will have to decide where he ought to draw the line -- how far he ought to carry the principle in his own affairs, how far he may go in dropping his own anonymity without injury to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole.”

“I saw that fear was a character defect, so I modified my Seventh Step Prayer. After ‘remove every single defect of character,’ I added, ‘and every unreasonable fear.’”

“My spiritual awakening has involved three major leaps: Save Me, Help Me, and Use Me.”

“My sponsor told me that if I stayed away from the first drink a day at a time and followed the suggested Twelve Steps, I could lead a sober life. She didn’t promise me health, wealth, happiness, love -- or comfort. All she promised me was sobriety! Thank goodness, she didn’t promise me anything else, because along the AA path I have found sickness, death, unhappiness, and considerable discomfort. But I have also found the greatest joy, love, and happiness of my life.”

“Many of us think today the main problem of Alcoholics Anonymous is this: How, as a movement, shall we maintain our humility -- and so our unity -- in the face of what the world calls a great triumph? Perhaps we need not look far afield for an answer. We need only adapt and apply to our group life those principles upon which each of us has founded his own recovery.”

“I’m becoming so secure in AA, I’ve even discarded the cute, funny, phony me my civilian friends used to know. I don’t have to dance with a rose in my teeth; I can just dance. And I don’t have to be the only girl at the picnic who can swing Tarzan-style from a rope into the river. I can swim calmly, like the forty-year-old mother of four I am.”

“Let us AAs no longer be takers from society. Instead, let us be givers.”

“The simple word ‘we’ stands at the entrance to the Steps, reminding me that my power is limited.”

“If you sponsor people, you’ll never need a mirror.”