"If I could come out in this book and advocate complete revolution and the violent overthrow of the United States of America, without being thrown in jail, I would not have written The Anarchist Cookbook, and there would be no need for it."

“Treat any and all drugs with respect, for most of the time they are stronger than you are.”

“There is only one purpose in hand-to-hand combat, and that is to kill. Never face an enemy with the idea of knocking him out. The chances are extremely good that he will kill you.”

“A word of advice: If you get the choice between the upper and lower bunks in a cell, choose the lower. Prisons do not turn off their lights at night, and I spent a sleepless night, without a mattress, with a five-hundred-watt bulb shining directly into my eyes.”

“Have you noticed that the people who actually make the laws, the people in power, never make laws for themselves?”

“A revolution was never fought, throughout history, for ideals. Revolutions were fought for much more concrete things: food, clothes, housing, and to relieve intolerable oppression. … I know of no one, outside of Patrick Henry, willing to die for an abstraction.”

“It seems acceptable today to scream for revolution, without any concept of what will follow it. This is just what the forces at large want, for who will follow a man who doesn't know where he's going?”