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“When we meet and defeat the temptation to take large gifts, we are only being prudent. But when we are generous with the hat we give a token that we are grateful for our blessings and evidence that we are eager to share what we have found with all those who still suffer.”

“Practicing the Twelve Traditions to the best of my ability has become just as vital a part of my personal recovery program as practicing the Twelve Steps. The Steps teach me how to think and act. The Traditions keep my personal program of recovery simple, well-balanced, and healthy.”

“In the first six months of my own sobriety, I worked hard with many alcoholics. Not a one responded. Yet this work kept me sober.”

“Part of the magic of AA is that the Fellowship, like the loving God who presides over us all, never gives up hope for the suffering alcoholic.”

“The other Steps can keep most of us sober and somehow functioning. But Step Eleven can keep us growing, if we try hard and work at it continually.”

“We began to see adversity as a God-given opportunity to develop the kind of courage which is born of humility, rather than bravado. Thus we were enabled to accept ourselves, our circumstances, and our fellows.”

“I no longer always have to be right.”

“Compromise comes hard to us ‘all-or-nothing drunks.’ Nevertheless, we must never lose sight of the fact that progress is nearly always characterized by a series of improving compromises.”

“Putting principles before personalities, both inside and outside the Fellowship, does not always endear me to everyone, but I would rather be disliked for what I am than liked for what I am not.”

“It’s true that the only requirement for membership in AA is a desire to stop drinking. But if you absolutely want a better life, well, hmmm ... How’s this? Working the Steps with a sponsor is a really good idea.”

“What is involved in taking the entire AA program, as the early AAs gave it to us, is not the prospect of turning into some sort of repulsive goody-goody. It’s the threat of being truly alive, aware, and perhaps even ecstatic.”

“There is among us AAs the ever present need for further spiritual growth.”

“It has only been in the past few months that I have become interested in service work in AA. Before that, I was an AA barnacle, glued to my seat, criticizing the speakers and griping about the coffee. Now I’m on the other side of the squawks and bleeps, and I find, to my delight, I like it.”

“The future would ... lack its full use and meaning did it not bring us fresh problems and even acute perils – problems and perils through which we can grow into true greatness of action and spirit.”

“What counts is not that which can be held in the hand but that which can be held in the heart.”