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“Even in self-protection, we do not wish to erect the slightest barrier between ourselves and the fellow alcoholic who still suffers. We know that society has been demanding that he conform to its laws and conventions. But the essence of his alcoholic malady is the fact that he has been unable or unwilling to conform either to the laws of man or God. If he is anything, the sick alcoholic is a rebellious nonconformist. How well we understand that.”

“Today I can look upon myself and others with understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, and love ... Recovery is a wonderland.”

“From the cradle to the grave there is always something wrong somewhere, something to rob us of enjoying perfection, something to bother us. When we put one thing right, another will surely go wrong sooner or later. So it behooves us to enjoy every minute we can, for a minute lost is a minute gone forever.”

“There are occasions for me when I am not thinking about myself and my own reactions to events or circumstances, but have my attention fully occupied by tasks, ideas, scenes, or another person. And when I recollect these occasions, I find that they have been my happiest.”

“Worry saps me of the energy that I need for today.”

“Acceptance doesn’t mean I have to condone a particular situation, it simply means I can better assess what is going on around me without the filters of my past and without comparison to what I would consider a more ideal circumstance.”

“Now that we no longer patronize bars and bordellos; now that we bring home the paychecks; now that we are so very active in AA; and now that people congratulate us on these signs of progress -- well, we naturally proceed to congratulate ourselves. Yet we may not be within hailing distance of humility. Meaning well, yet doing badly, how often have I said or thought, ‘I am right and you are wrong,’ ‘My plan is correct and yours is faulty,’ ‘Thank God your sins are not my sins,’ ‘You are hurting AA and I'm going to stop you cold,’ ‘I have God's guidance, so He is on my side.’ And so on, indefinitely.

The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the ease with which it is justified.”

“In AA I learned to take the risk of being real.”

“A leader must realize that even very prideful or angry people can sometimes be dead right, when the calm and the more humble are quite mistaken.

“These points are practical illustrations of the kinds of careful discrimination and soul-searching that true leadership must always try to exercise.”

“I must learn to open my mind as well as my eyes.”

“Nobody invented Alcoholics Anonymous. It just grew -- by the grace of God.”

“Sobriety is ... hope for the future while living in the moment.”

“Though three hundred thousand did recover in the last twenty-five years, maybe half a million more have walked into our midst, and then out again. No doubt some were too sick to make even a start. Others couldn't or wouldn't admit their alcoholism. Still others couldn't face up to their underlying personality defects. Numbers departed for still other reasons.

Yet we can't well content ourselves with the view that all these recovery failures were entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves. Perhaps a great many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they so sorely needed. We didn't communicate when we might have done so. So we AAs failed them. Perhaps more often than we think, we still make no contact at depth with those suffering the dilemma of no faith.”

“The expression of true humility is the willingness to serve others without expectation of reward, prestige or recognition for our services to them. It should be done in a spirit of cheerfulness and joy.”

“Most of the important and astounding things that have happened to me in the last eighteen years of sobriety in AA have been slow in coming and impossible to recognize or appreciate until long after they took place.”