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“It doesn’t do too much good to carry the Big Book on your arm all day if you don’t open it up and read it.”

“We are beginning to see new values in AA. We perceive in our midst a spiritual realm, which can be little disturbed by the distractions of wealth or self-serving egocentricity.”

“As long as I am acting in a loving and caring manner, I am not responsible for how others react. This frees me from pleasing people at my own emotional expense.”

“We AAs shall have to hang together -- or else hang separately!”

“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.”

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

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

“Complaining is not an action step.”

“I have never mastered the art of self-sponsorship, and I doubt that I ever will.”

“The whole world became mine when I had nowhere else to go.”

“What unites all members on the program is a common sincerity. We are all seeking the truth; we are trying for honesty. In practice, any useful conception of God must relate to this idea of truth. Some people would say that God is truth -- no more and no less.”

“One of the truly great gifts in this Fellowship of mutually concerned people is the gift of the art of listening.”

“There are no shibboleths in AA. We are not bound by theological doctrine ... We are many minds in our organization.”

“After endless voting on a title for the new work we had decided to call it The Way Out. But inquiry by Fritz M., our Maryland alcoholic, at The Library of Congress disclosed the fact that 12 books already bore that title. Surely we couldn't make our book the 13th. So we named it Alcoholics Anonymous instead! Though we didn't know it, our movement then got its name -- a name which because of the implication of humility and modesty has given us our treasured spiritual principle of anonymity.”