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“‘Historians may one day point to Alcoholics Anonymous as a society which did far more than achieve a considerable measure of success with alcoholism and its stigma; they may recognize Alcoholics Anonymous to have been a great venture in social pioneering which forged a new instrument for social action, a new therapy based on the kinship of common suffering, one having vast potential for the myriad other ills of mankind.’”

“After several years of regular attendance at an Eleventh Step study, a simple meditation came to me that I think of as the ‘alcoholic's meditation.’ With each in-breath, I think, Welcome. With each out-breath, I think, Thank you. That leaves me fluctuating between acceptance and gratitude, which I recognize as two of the integral principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.’”

“Good public relations are AA lifelines reaching out to the alcoholic who still does not know us.”

“In this moment, regardless of what happened before or what may happen tomorrow, what is the very best thing I can possibly do, right now?”

“We work; we struggle; we will survive.”

“I don't know the music, but there is sound -- sometimes rushing and furious, sometimes gentle and caressing. But always there's the sound of a master pianist at play, conducting some mad orchestra of life. I don't know what or why or how, but I know I'm here. And the best I can do is to find God's will for me.”

“Self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets man against man, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need only investigate ourselves.”

“It is not stupid to accept myself and others complete with our imperfections. It would be stupid not to.”

“Think, think, think before you make that angry comment or mail that bitter letter. How important is it?”

“Serenely remarking to his attendant, ‘I think this is it,’ Dr. Bob passed out of our sight and hearing November sixteenth at noonday. So ended the consuming malady wherein he had so well shown us how high faith can rise over grievous distress. As he had lived, so he had died, supremely aware that in his Father's House are many Mansions.”

“I never thought that a day like today would be a high point of my life. All that excitement that I used to crave and strive for was not there. I don’t have to live on the edge anymore. And tonight as I lay my head on my pillow I can’t think of one single thing that I did today that I have to go back and redo and make amends for.”

“My miracle occurred when I became willing to go to any lengths to take action. Like the trapeze artist, it wasn’t the knowledge of it being there -- it was the action of letting go.”

“The first 100 members of this Fellowship, who hammered out the Twelve Steps, knew what they were doing. They could have made it two steps or ten steps or twenty-five steps, but they didn't. I don't think they put anything in they didn't think they needed. They were working the whole program, not because they were saints, but because they were drunks who wanted to get well. I have no reason to suppose I'm any less sick than they were; I have no reason to suppose I need any less of the program than they did.”

“Today’s sobriety cannot be chugalugged ... It has to be sipped, one taste at a time, so that each drop of serenity can be fully savored.”

“It’s only when I stop thinking about it, stop trying to run the show, that my life may become as God intends.”