“We lose the fear of making decisions, great and small; as we realize that should our choice prove wrong we can, if we will, learn from the experience.”

In the wake of my spiritual experience there came a vision of a society of alcoholics.

AA is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.

We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.

We know that permanent sobriety can be attained only by a most revolutionary change in the life and outlook of the individual.

More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor

I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.

You are asking yourself, as all of us must: ‘Who am I?’ . . . ‘Where am I?’ . . . ‘Whence do I go?’ The process of enlightenment is usually slow. But, in the end, our seeking always brings a finding. These great mysteries are, after all, enshrined in complete simplicity.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves would restore us to sanity.

If I judge others, I am probably judging myself. Whoever is upsetting me most is my best teacher. I have much to learn from him or her, and in my hearts, I should thank that person.

We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired.

In God’s economy, nothing is wasted. Through failure, we learn a lesson in humility which is probably needed, painful though it is.

Years ago I used to commiserate with all people who suffered. Now I commiserate only with those who suffer in ignorance, who do not understand the purpose and ultimate utility of pain

When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion we can ever know.

Honesty with ourselves & others gets us sober, but it is tolerance that keeps us that way.

No personal calamity is so crushing that something true and great can’t be made of it

Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity, or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.

Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.

My life has been extremely complicated. Not by choice at the beginning at all, but later on, I had become used to complication and went on accepting things that other people would have found too difficult to accept.

I write horror because I enjoy it. I’m endlessly fascinated by the supernatural, by death, by darkness. And, to be honest, I don’t have much choice. This is the way my mind works.

Choice is a determinant in personal development … by my free acts I am making myself.

The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.

I get more choices of things, projects, which is a blessing and a curse. I can only do one at a time. Sometimes you don’t know which way to go.

Having no children had been a kind of choice up to the moment when, from a choice, it became a sadness.

I began to realize that poverty was really more of a choice than anything else and that I could change that. And it just really depended on how hard I wanted to work.