William Powell (author)

William Powell (born 1949) is the author of The Anarchist Cookbook, which he has since disowned. He and his wife are currently the co-directors of Education Across Frontiers, an organization aimed at the professional development of international school teachers and administrators.

Sourced

The Anarchist Cookbook (1971)

• This is a brutal book – sensual, rude, coarse, and cruel. However, it is timely and well-written, even witty.
  • Introductory words by P. M. Bergman

• Power is not a material possession that can be given, it is the ability to act. Power must be taken, it is never given.
  • "Foreword"

• 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.
  • "Introduction"

• Believe it or not, bananas do contain a small quantity of Musa Sapientum bananadine, which is a mild, short-lasting psychedelic.
  • The fictitious bananadine recipe, from chapter one, "Drugs"

• I detest symbolic protest, as it is an outcry of weak, middle-of-the-road, liberal eunuchs. If an individual feels strongly enough about something to do something about it, then he shouldn't prostitute himself by doing something symbolic. He should get out and do something real.
  • Chapter Two: "Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance"

• 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.
  • Chapter Two: "Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance"

• A government creates its own revolution. There can be no revolt without it.
  • Chapter Two: "Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance"

• Since shotguns are not military weapons, your local sporting goods dealer will have good information about them, as long as you aren't black, Spanish, or a white freak.
  • Chapter Three: "Natural, Nonlethal, and Lethal Weapons"

• Never before have self-suffiency and education been so important, and they are virtually inseparable from survival.
  • Chapter Three: "Natural, Nonlethal, and Lethal Weapons"

• This chapter is going to kill and maim more people than all the rest put together, because people just refuse to take things seriously.
  • Chapter Four: "Explosives and Booby Traps"