Twelve Steps Quotes

You know, there's a 12 step program for gambling. You should look into that.
Twelve steps. Coyote laughed. I'll bet I can do it in six. ~ Christopher Moore

Today, I will trust that God will do for me what I cannot do for myself. I will do my part - working the Twelve Steps and letting God do the rest. ~ Melody Beattie

You see, even after decades of therapy and workshops and retreats and twelve-steps and meditation and even experiencing a very weird session of rebirthings, even after rappeling down mountains and walking over hot coals and jumping out of airplanes and watching elephant races and climbing the Great Wall of China, and even after floating down the Amazon and taking ayahuasca with an ex-husband and a witch doctor and speaking in tongues and fasting (both nutritional and verbal), I remained pelted and plagued by feelings of uncertainty and despair. Yes, even after sleeping with a senator, and waking up next to a dead friend, and celebrating Michael Jackson's last Christmas with him and his kids, I still did not feel - how shall I put this? - mentally sound. ~ Carrie Fisher

They say there are twelve steps to quitting something. But what if that something is playing with a slinky? Seems like you should be able to quit playing with a slinky using no steps. ~ Jarod Kintz

When religion does not move people to the mystical or non-dual level of consciousness9 it is more a part of the problem than any solution whatsoever. It solidifies angers, creates enemies, and is almost always exclusionary of the most recent definition of "sinner." At this level, it is largely incapable of its supreme task of healing, reconciling, forgiving, and peacemaking. When religion does not give people an inner life or a real prayer life, it is missing its primary vocation. Let me sum up, then, the foundational ways that I believe Jesus and the Twelve Steps of A.A. are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it. This counterintuitive wisdom will forever be resisted as true, denied, and avoided, until it is forced upon us - by some reality over which we are powerless - and if we are honest, we are all powerless in the presence of full Reality. ~ Richard Rohr

Most important, whether or not we openly struggle with unwanted behavior or addiction, the Twelve Steps provide a framework for examining ourselves, pondering the possibility that our behavior has been or is
detrimental to others. It can be a very productive undertaking for self-assessment and examination. ~ Eileen Schmitz

It was only my first AA meeting, but I was certain assaulting a fellow alcoholic wasn't one of those Twelve Steps. ~ Christa Allan

I sit and I listen to John cry and I wish there was something I could do to help him. I sit and I listen and I wish there was some way I could make it better. There is no hope for John, no hope at all. He could go to five hundred Clinics and spend ten years working the Twelve Steps and it wouldn't make a bit of fucking difference. He has been broken beyond repair, wounded beyond the point of healing, abused beyond the point of recovery. He will never know happiness or joy, security, or normalcy. He will never know pleasure, satisfaction, serenity, clarity, peace of mind or any semblance of sanity. He will never know or trust love. You poor, sick, sad Motherfucker. You will never know. I'm sorry. ~ James Frey

I learned that the purpose of the Twelve Steps is to do the will of God. ~ Keith Miller

My car broke down. Instead of AAA, I called AA by mistake. They could only move my car twelve steps. ~ Jerry Snider

Recovery is taking all twelve steps...over and over and over and over... ~ Toni Sorenson

RIGOROUS HONESTY Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A.A.'s message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this prospect - unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 24 I am an alcoholic. If I drink I will die. My, what power, energy, and emotion this simple statement generates in me! But it's really all I need to know for today. Am I willing to stay alive today? Am I willing to stay sober today? Am I willing to ask for help and am I willing to be a help to another suffering alcoholic today? Have I discovered the fatal nature of my situation? What must I do, today, to stay sober? ~ Alcoholics Anonymous

1.We admitted we were powerless over our emotions, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2.Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4.Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6.Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9.Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to emotionally and mentally ill persons and to practice these principles in all our affairs. ~ Jerry Hirschfield

Your body is a hyacinth,
Into which a monk dips his waxy fingers.
Our silence is a black cavern,
From which a soft animal steps at times
And slowly lowers heavy eyelids.
On your temples black dew drips,
The last gold of expired stars ~ Georg Trakl

Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed,-render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod! ~ William Wordsworth

A city is a crazy concrete jungle whose people at the end of each day somehow make a small step ahead against terrible odds. ~ Herb Caen

Homeschooling will certainly produce some socially awkward adults, but the odds are good they would have been just as quirky had they spent twelve years raising their hand for permission to go to the bathroom. ~ Quinn Cummings

You might think that after all the shameful capitulations made by the government during the ups and downs of their negotiations with the maphia ... they could sink no lower. Alas, when one advances blindly across the boggy ground of realpolitik, when pragmatism takes up the baton and conducts the orchestra, ignoring what is written in the score, you can be pretty sure that, as the imperative logic of dishonor will show, there are still, after all, a few more steps to descend. ~ Jose Saramago

Unexpectedly, she took several trotting steps and then threw in a couple of feeble attempts at bucking! She felt good enough to try and play! ... Instead of slowing down, she broke into a very awkward canter, punctuated by all sorts of goofy attempts to throw her heels up. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at her faltering display of joyful rejuvenation. ~ Kim Meeder

I retraced my steps, walked up to her, and in another moment would have certainly said, "Madam!" if I had not known that that exclamation had been made a thousand times before in all Russian novels of high life. It was that alone that stopped me. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Perhaps, then, one of the first steps in "learning how to make peace" and "finding nonviolent alternatives" is to develop peace churches that nurture unconventional reflexes and free our imaginations to explore creative possibilities. ~ Stuart Murray

People who refuse to step out and be used by God become the critics of those who do. Risk takers, the ones who thrill the heart of God, become the targets of those who never fail because they seldom try. ~ Bill Johnson

Because, to do manual work now, means in reality to shut yourself up for ten or twelve hours a day in an unhealthy workshop, and to remain chained to the same task for twenty or thirty years, and maybe for your whole life.
It means to be doomed to a paltry wage, to the uncertainty of the morrow, to want of work, often to destitution, more often than not to death in a hospital, after having worked forty years to feed, clothe, amuse, and instruct others than yourself and your children.
It means to bear the stamp of inferiority all your life; because, whatever the politicians tell us, the manual worker is always considered inferior to the brain worker, and the one who has toiled ten hours in a workshop has not the time, and still less the means, to give himself the high delights of science and art, nor even to prepare himself to appreciate them; he must be content with the crumbs from the table of privileged persons. ~ Pyotr Kropotkin

So word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch'd me from the past,
And all at once it seem'd at last
The living soul was flash'd on mine,


And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world,


Aeonian music measuring out
The steps of Time - the shocks of Chance--
The blows of Death. At length my trance
Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt. ~ Alfred Tennyson

A great step towards independence is a good-humored stomach, one that is willing to endure rough treatment. ~ Seneca The Younger

I finished high school, moved to Nashville for college, and set out to break into the music business. Every night when I called home with news of my experiences, my mom and dad would encourage me to keep taking those small steps. ~ Trisha Yearwood

We live in a culture of reductionism. Or better, we are living in the aftermath of a culture of reductionism, and I believe we have reduced the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to systematic theologies that insist on ideological conformity, even when such conformity flattens the diversity of the Scriptural witness. We have reduced our conception of gospel to four simple steps that short-circuit biblical narratives and notions of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven in favor of a simplified means of entrance to heaven. Our preaching is often wed to our materialistic, consumerist cultural assumptions, and sermons are subsequently reduced to delivering messages that reinforce the worst of what American culture produces: self-centered end users who believe that God is a resource that helps an individual secure what amounts to an anemic and culturally bound understanding of the 'abundant life. ~ Tim Keel

Commitment to each other is critical. Let's make our deadlines and due dates mean something. For changes to occur, we have to embrace them over and over. Take it step by step
but keep moving forward
and a year from now, we'll find we've moved from here to there. ~ Rhonda Abrams

Jesus.. says, 'Let go of your complaints, forgive those who loved you poorly, step over your feelings of being rejected, and have the courage to trust that you won't fall into an abyss of nothingness but into the safe embrace of a God whose love will heal all your wounds. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

You've been here before?" Derek asked, his gaze firmly fixed on Rowena's ass shifting under the shimmering green silk a few steps above us. "Wiggles," I told him. He blinked, then realized I wasn't referring to Rowena's backside. ~ Ilona Andrews

A king is a king, but a bard is the heart and soul of the people; he is their life in song, and the lamp which guides their steps along the paths of destiny. A bard is the essential spirit of the clan; he is the linking ring, the golden cord which unites the manifold ages of the clan, binding all that is past with all that is yet to come. ~ Stephen R. Lawhead

This is a dying fleck of love,
about a drunken man, and a broken woman,
taking steps into the woods,
trying to remember the days,
when the moon was full. ~ Rachel Blattstein

The moment that you are willing to step outside of tomorrow, outside of needing more time, or having more time, everything becomes possible. And you may finally notice where the Buddha has always been. ~ Adyashanti

We can't control what thoughts and emotions arise within us, nor can we control the universal truth that everything changes. But we can learn to step back and rest in the awareness of what's happening. That awareness can be our refuge. ~ Sharon Salzberg

The Byzantines are logical and organized. They operate like a machine, like a catapult, for example. Everything works well when all steps take place as they should. But they are trained to follow rules, not to think for themselves. We, on the other hand, are good at improvising but lack control, we are, to a great extent, undisciplined, but have unity of Cause. ~ John Elray

I can't stop eating. I can't. I haven't been hungry in twelve years. ~ Jim Gaffigan

The Millennium Falcon." She could not keep the wonder out of her voice. "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs." "Twelve parsecs. ~ Alan Dean Foster

Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want. ~ Bernard Baruch

The pain that's created by avoiding hard work is actually much worse than any pain created from the actual work itself. Because if you don't begin to work on those ideas that God has blessed you with, they will become stagnant inside of you and eventually begin to eat away at you. You might seem OK on the outside, but inside you will be ill from not getting those ideas out of your heart and into the world. Stalling leads to sickness. But taking steps, even baby steps, always leads to success. ~ Russell Simmons

Walk slowly and deliberately during the day and take big steps at night. ~ Marty Rubin

People are going to wake up to this great reservoir of music we've created in America - cakewalks, one-steps, boogie-woogie, country and western. I had a bit to do with one of those traditions. ~ Johnny Otis

Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Remember, I am always 12 steps ahead.. ~ Silvia Flores

What steps can you take to prepare before meeting others to ensure that when you do show up, you are bringing your very best to the table? ~ Susan C. Young

Jeremy Corbyn had shown a catastrophic failure of leadership and must step down to make way for someone with the backbone to confront racism and anti-Semitism. ~ Ruth Smeeth

Idea-less steps and step-less ideas are greatest wastes. ~ Vikrmn

SIXTY-NINE She was Amy, and she was forever. She was one of Twelve and also the other, the one above and behind, the Zero. She was the Girl from Nowhere, the One Who Walked In, who lived a thousand years; Amy of Multitudes, the Girl with the Souls Inside Her. She was Amy. She was Amy. She was Amy. She ~ Justin Cronin

All I could think as he was speaking was that, if he touched me at all, all the miles I'd walked, the pain I'd felt, the beauty I'd drunken like milk, like good wine making me happy, the four million steps I'd taken, would all add up to nothing. They'd be stolen. ~ Aspen Matis

There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they're easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. ~ Roy Blount, Jr.

What we care about is, when faced with a problem and you're a member of a team, do you, at the appropriate time, step in and lead. And just as critically, do you step back and stop leading, do you let someone else? ~ Laszlo Bock

If all of the steps of surrender are present, then a great Rembrandt or Monet will evoke love because the artist is simply there in all his naked humanity. ~ Deepak Chopra

Heroism is a matter of integrity
beco ming more and more at each step ourselves. ~ Joseph Campbell

As Magnus turned to walk away from the church, he heard the sound of violin music carried to him on the cloudy London air, and remembered another night, a night of ghosts and snow and Christmas music, and Will standing on the steps of the Institute, watching Magnus as he went. ~ Cassandra Clare

We have to ask, 'How can we break a huge challenge like sending humans to Mars into a series of doable, affordable steps? How can we break that problem down into chunks in order to keep making progress?' ~ Ellen Stofan

A radical shift in attitude happens in small steps. It's a transformation. A butterfly does a lot of walking and eating and growing before it finally forms a chrysalis and emerges with wings. It's not an instant transformation. ~ Rohvannyn Shaw

Finishing Year Twelve had been a blessed relief. Although, having read Looking for Alibrandi several times since Year Eight, I was disappointed when Year Twelve did not bring me a handsome, salt-of-the-earth boyfriend and ultimate emancipation from all that ailed my teenage soul. ~ Laura Buzo

In my home there is a magic box. It is rectangular, it sits ten to twelve feet away from my desk. And if you place something inside that box and go away, when you come back thirty minutes later, that object is cold. I have no idea how this works. But if you persist in thinking of this as a refrigerator, then you have lost the perception of mystery. ~ Max Maven

The Earth is like one of those balls made of twelve pieces of skin. ~ Plato