“Now that we no longer patronize bars and bordellos; now that we bring home the pay checks; now that we are so very active in AA; and now that people congratulate us on these signs of progress -- well, we naturally proceed to congratulate ourselves. Yet we may not be within hailing distance of humility. Meaning well, yet doing badly, how often have I said or thought, ‘I am right and you are wrong,’ ‘My plan is correct and yours is faulty,’ ‘Thank God your sins are not my sins,’ ‘You are hurting AA and I'm going to stop you cold,’ ‘I have God's guidance, so He is on my side.’ And so on, indefinitely. “The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the ease with which it is justified.”

“In AA I learned to take the risk of being real.”

“A leader must realize that even very prideful or angry people can sometimes be dead right, when the calm and the more humble are quite mistaken. “These points are practical illustrations of the kinds of careful discrimination and soul-searching that true leadership must always try to exercise.”

“I must learn to open my mind as well as my eyes.”

“Nobody invented Alcoholics Anonymous. It just grew -- by the grace of God.”

“Sobriety is ... hope for the future while living in the moment.”

“Though three hundred thousand did recover in the last twenty-five years, maybe half a million more have walked into our midst, and then out again. No doubt some were too sick to make even a start. Others couldn't or wouldn't admit their alcoholism. Still others couldn't face up to their underlying personality defects. Numbers departed for still other reasons. “Yet we can't well content ourselves with the view that all these recovery failures were entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves. Perhaps a great many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they so sorely needed. We didn't communicate when we might have done so. So we AAs failed them. Perhaps more often than we think, we still make no contact at depth with those suffering the dilemma of no faith.”

“The expression of true humility is the willingness to serve others without expectation of reward, prestige or recognition for our services to them. It should be done in a spirit of cheerfulness and joy.”

“Most of the important and astounding things that have happened to me in the last eighteen years of sobriety in AA have been slow in coming and impossible to recognize or appreciate until long after they took place.”

“Through uncovering and admitting my character defects, I realized that I was no different than the people I was so afraid of. I understood that we were all suffering and that I didn’t need to disguise my authentic self.”

“We ought to look toward God's perfection as our guide rather than as a goal to be reached in any foreseeable time.”

“We can never take our plodding progress as the slightest alibi for setting ourselves second-rate goals.”

“We’re all fledglings, learning to fly.”

“To those of you who walk in front of me in time, thank you for your time and patience. To those of you who walk behind me in time, I'm glad you've joined us in this newfound life. To those that have not yet arrived or have left for a time: we will keep a seat, a cup of coffee, and lots of love waiting for you.”

“Whatever happens to me is not nearly so important as the way I look at the happening -- the way I feel about it.”