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“Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life.”

“No matter what is going on in my life, no matter how bad things seem, I can always find something to be grateful for if I just look hard enough.”

“I’m not here to change Alcoholics Anonymous; Alcoholics Anonymous is here to change me.”

“If we follow our Traditions, we will survive and, I hope, grow. The Traditions tell us to serve—not govern; to attract—not promote; to carry the message—not force it on anyone; to keep the three legacies alive: recovery, unity, and service. These are our lifelines.”

“Last summer I visited the Akron cemetery where Bob and Anne lie. Their simple stone says never a word about Alcoholics Anonymous. This made me so glad I cried.”

“We are all important, but not for the reasons we think.”

“Sanity begins with the admission of reality into the mind.”

“I am trying to do what I can to love, today. Can anything else be more important?”

“The foundation stone of freedom from fear is that of faith: a faith that, despite all worldly appearances to the contrary, causes me to believe that I live in a universe that makes sense.”

“AA is not a place; it’s an attitude of mind, a warmth of the heart – a spiritual fourth dimension where material things can’t get the upper hand.”

“At some point in each today, we recovering alcoholics need to pay ourselves a friendly visit.”

“I was told when I began my own journey through the Twelve Steps that I could find God in a most unlikely place: standing smack in the middle of the truth about myself.”

“The group I joined saved my life ... For an hour, I was safe. For an hour, I had a haven among those whose fear had once been as great as my own. I did not give my fear away – they took it. They eased it from my grasp with hugs and laughter, with shared experience.”

“My willingness to have my defects of character removed was bolstered by the realization that little, if any, spiritual growth was possible as long as I held on to my old ideas and defects.”

“When life is easy, I usually assume it’s God’s way and I’m quite spiritual. But when I’m in emotional trouble, I assume life’s a drag and that God’s gone fishing.”