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“If the day comes that I do drink again, it will not be because I had no alternative. It will be because I had an alternative, provided by a loving God, but was unwilling to use it.”

“I have an AA friend, a good and gentle soul. He recently joined one of the great religious orders, one in which the friars spend many hours a day in contemplation. So my friend has plenty of time to take his inventory. The more he looks, the more unconscious self-deception he finds. And the more astonished he becomes at the elaborate and devious excuse-making machinery by which he had been justifying himself. He has already come to the conclusion that the prideful righteousness of ‘good people’ may often be just as destructive as the glaring sins of those who are supposedly not so good. So he daily looks inward upon himself and then upward toward God, the better to discover just where he stands in this matter of honesty. Out of each of his meditations there always emerges one dead certainty, and this is the fact that he still has a long way to go.”

“We shall often miscalculate the future in whole or in part. But even so, this will be far better than to refuse to think at all.”

“True morality has its inevitable compensations, for when we benefit someone we increase our own happiness.”

“Rigorous action coupled with conscious reflection and human compassion will gain me new opportunities for greater hope and harmony with all those I deal with -- even ones with whom I disagree.”

“When finally my household went quite broke, I woke up to the fact that I hadn't been able to face the prospect of going back to work. So I returned to Wall Street after all. And I have ever since been glad that I did ... Indeed, there was one colossal dividend that resulted directly from my grudging decision to reenter the market place. It was a Wall Street business trip to Akron, Ohio, in 1935, that first brought me face to face with Dr. Bob -- AA's co-founder-to-be. So the birth of AA itself actually hinged on the fact that I had been trying to meet my bread-and-butter responsibilities.”

"The temporary or seeming good can often be the deadly enemy of the permanent best."

“Hope is tremendous progress for someone who once was ‘hopeless.’”

“I borrowed others' faith for a long time, and now I'm beginning to get a bit of my own.”

“Success and failure share a common denominator ... Both are temporary.”

“Faith is more than our greatest gift; its sharing with others is our greatest responsibility.”

“Excessive guilt or rebellion leads to spiritual poverty.”

“There are winners and whiners, and sometimes I seem to embody both. I am, as my friends remind me, a human being.”

“During his first AA years every AA has had plenty of the urge to revolt against authority. I know I did, and can’t claim to be over it yet. I’ve also served my time as a maker of rules, a regulator of other people’s conduct ... I can now look back upon such experiences with much amusement. And gratitude as well.”

“Spiritual growth and experiences are not limited to orthodox believers in a deity, any more than the disease of alcoholism is limited to skid-row bums.”