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“The power in these rooms is greater than the sum total of those of us present.”

“If you want to be happy, go to a meeting. If you want to be twice as happy, go to two meetings.”

“Now that my spiritual eyes have begun to open, the world is much fuller.”

“We have to keep looking for something better than dullness, better than average living, better than mediocre spirituality.”

“As I peel away the layers of day-to-day expediency, I realize that my zigzag, erratic, and inconsistent course was in the general direction of progress all the time.”

“The ability to laugh at ourselves is an intrinsic part of the healing process.”

“When we reach a maximum in understanding, we know how very much we shall never understand.”

‘Imperfection offers me the freedom of a million potentials.”

“Sound policy can only be made by rubbing the conservatives and the promoters together. Their discussions, if free from personal ambitions and resentment, can be depended upon to produce the right answers. For us, there is no other way.”

“I am still amazed at the aura around AA meetings ... No matter what our immediate problems, fears, or resentments, we come to a halt when the meeting begins and focus on our primary purpose.”

“Older AAs who know the record are unanimous in their feeling that an intelligence greater than ours has surely been at work, else we could never have avoided so many pitfalls, could never have been so happily related to our millions of friends in the outside world.”

“Our mistakes of yesterday can be stepping stones for tomorrow if we do something about them today.”

“Before we can be of any use to anybody else, we must find the beginnings of the answer for ourselves.”

“Our Traditions are set down on paper. But they were written first in our hearts. For each of us knows, instinctively I think, that AA is not ours to do with as we please. We are but caretakers to preserve the spiritual quality of our Fellowship; keep it whole for those who will come after us and have need of what has so generously been given to us.”

“The core of our AA procedure is one alcoholic talking to another, whether that be sitting on a curbstone, in a home, or at a meeting. It’s the message, not the place; it’s the talk, not the alms.”