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“You don't help anyone by trying to impress them; you impress someone when you try to help them.”

“By applying the principles of the program, I have gained my freedom – freedom to be myself, to like myself as I am, to become whatever it is that my Higher Power has planned for me, one day at a time – freedom to live the type of life I’m most comfortable with, to love, and to laugh.”

“While we need not alter our truths, we can surely improve their application to ourselves, to AA as a whole, and to our relation with the world around us. We can constantly step up ‘the practice of these principles in all our affairs.’”

“The fellowship in AA is unique. Ties are made overnight that it would take years to develop elsewhere. No one needs a false front. All barriers are down. Some who have felt outcasts all their lives now know they really belong. From feeling as if they were dragging anchor though life, they suddenly sail free before the wind.”

“It's hard to keep an open mind with an open mouth.”

“Complaining is not an action step.”

“I was told that sometimes a good sponsor disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed.”

“There is a tendency to label everything that an alcoholic may do as ‘alcoholic behavior.’ The truth is, it is simply human nature ... Emotional and mental quirks are classified as symptoms of alcoholism merely because alcoholics have them, yet those same quirks can be found among nonalcoholics, too. Actually they are symptoms of mankind.”

“A coffeepot simmers on the kitchen stove, a hospital sobers the stricken sufferer, general headquarters broadcast the AA message; our service lifelines span the seven seas. All these symbolize AA in action. For action is the magic word of Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“At the beginning we sacrificed alcohol. We had to, or it would have killed us. But we couldn’t get rid of alcohol unless we made other sacrifices. Big shot-ism and phony thinking had to go. We had to toss self-justification, self-pity, and anger right out the window. We had to quit the crazy contest for personal prestige and big bank balances. We had to take personal responsibility for our sorry state and quit blaming others for it.”

“Talking about what bothers me helps it lose its power over me.”

“I’m learning to be a mother, a friend, a grandmother, and a sister. My friends are a close-knit support group, and they’re as near as the telephone.”

“When we love, we will see in others what we wish to see in ourselves.”

“Pride in my intelligence blinded me to how much I did not know.”

“Truth is not a bludgeon to be used indiscriminately ... When I am asked for an opinion or advice, I give it to the best of my ability with as much gentleness, understanding, and tolerance as I can scrape up.”