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"My life and the lives of those around me do, in fact, form their own parts in a symphony of interaction."

"The phrase 'God as we understand him' is perhaps the most important expression to be found in our whole AA vocabulary. Within the compass of these five significant words there can be included every kind and degree of faith, together with the positive assurance that each of us may choose his own."

"I've likened that transforming instant, when despair gave way to a glimmer of hope, to a tiny flower sprung into bloom amid the bombed-out wreckage of my life. Thanks to AA, that tiny bloom was to become a garden."

"Sobriety does interesting things to the mind – clears it up some, lets a bit of honesty and truth filter in, and begins to demand reality."

"Sometimes taking somebody else's inventory can be most beneficial. When I was doing my Fourth Step, an old-timer suggested I list the names of those against whom I held resentments, followed by two or three sentences describing what they had done to earn my displeasure. Then, after putting the list aside for a day, I was to cross off each person's name and replace it with my own."

"So long as there is the slightest interest in sobriety, the most unmoral, the most antisocial, the most critical alcoholic may gather about him a few kindred spirits and announce to us that a new Alcoholics Anonymous group has been formed. Anti-God, anti-medicine, anti-our recovery program, even anti-each other – these rampant individuals are still an AA group if they think so!"

"The grace of the Fellowship and the principles of the program carry us through the tough spots as well as the times of joy. Whether we are sober 33 days or 33 years, we each receive our daily reprieve from active alcoholism by working this program to the best of our ability, one day at a time."

"Spirituality is not based on logic, it is faith-driven. Faith makes the impossible possible."

"I think my Higher Power stepped in and started leading me out of the alcoholic life, as I seemed incapable of doing it on my own."

"We are privileged to communicate with each other to a degree and in a manner not very often surpassed among our nonalcoholic friends in the world around us."

"Nobody argued about whose Higher Power was higher."

"Forgiveness seems to depend more on the love of the one who does the forgiving than on the lovability of the one being forgiven."

"Many ask 'What is anonymity?' and 'What is humility?' To me, they are almost the same thing. They are devoid of prestige; they demand nothing; they don't ask to be 'right'; they simply suggest that the icy egocentric elements in all of us retire into the background and that we wear the warm cloak of anonymity and humility and therefore, spirituality."

"In examining the precision and aptness of the small, I can be more appreciative of the large."

"Often in the past, my prayers for help have been answered in ways that I have not recognized as answers. Indeed, I have cursed my fate instead of thanking God."