Jacob Wren

“Coincidences are ‘God’s way of staying anonymous.’ They are a reassurance that there is a flow and it’s useful to note and appreciate them when they occur.”
– Richard Russell, Liberation Through Hearing

“Steve Almond did not respond directly. Instead he said: ‘reading the letters we receive, I’m always struck by how much, and how quickly, people convert their pain into self-loathing.’ This stopped me cold.”
– Sarah Krasnostein, The Believer

“Once I had been allowed to enter the movement, I decided it was rubbish, continuing a lifelong pattern of disowning my goals once they were achieved.”
– Richard Russell, Liberation Through Hearing

My book got some really nice reviews: radicalcut.blogspot.com/2024/11/some...

"Our words don’t suit prophecies anymore. That power is left to other species: to oak trees, for example, to the tides, which through their restlessness carry a phosphorescence we’re not equipped to hear."
- Etel Adnan, Shifting the Silence

The resistance of being to purity.

“The media simply can’t discuss a work of literature without pointing to some writer-hero. And yet there is no work of literature that is not the fruit of tradition, of many skills, of a sort of collective intelligence.”
— Elena Ferrante

“So much of our social justice work comes from creating worlds that reflect the opposite of our loneliness.”
- KeiyaA

I spent my formative years reading about Latin American dictatorships - disappearances, torture, etc. - all perpetrated by individuals trained at the School of the Americas. And every moment of that reading was spent thinking: sooner or later this will all happen here as well.

I've never really understood why there always seems to be so much infighting amongst the left. Or even if it's really true.

"It’s an honor to be in the presence of those we love, and equally fascinating to be with those we despise as well.”
– Tosh Berman, Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World

Monday August 11th / Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren at Perfect Books in Ottawa . Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren, hosted by Rachel Weldon Perfect Books Monday August 11th 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM 258A Elgin St, Ottawa I...

Monday August 11th / Erin Brubacher and Jacob Wren at Perfect Books in Ottawa: radicalcut.blogspot.com/2025/07/mond...

"Not everyone can sell out, even if they want to. Over the years, I have noticed that the strength of singers like Adam Ant and Billy Idol was their ability to sell their asses and still appear to be doing precisely what they wanted."
– Julian Cope, Repossessed

"It's like the last push of madness before I die, which I have decided to call a trilogy." radicalcut.blogspot.com/2025/07/star...

"We do not have “perfect” politics. We do not believe in factionalism or rigid ideology. We can die having had the “correct positions” but having accomplished nothing and freed no one. The desire to be “right” or “perfect” is the highest form of cynicism."
– The Red Nation, The Red Deal

And it’s a good read.
Remarkably prescient of the times we’re living in.

"Virtuosity annoys me, it confuses art with prowess."
- Édouard Levé

Alongside my madness, there also something about me that is almost too sane.

"I've been a writer for thirty-eight years, but in my current trajectory I've only been a writer for eleven years. It's like I found a way to start over. And I am searching for a way to now start over again." radicalcut.blogspot.com/2025/07/star...

“I am aware that, every time I have a conversation with a book, I benefit from someone’s decision against silence.”
- Yiyun Li

"Even if you cannot forgive yourself, and by some poor luck you cannot forgive anyone else either, and there is no vengeance to be had in this baneful world that is slowly suffocating on its own past, there might still be a paradox of goodness."
- Ida Hattemer-Higgins, The History of History

lol

Society needs a way to effectively manage greed.

"Failure is very cleansing, and success is very confusing."
- M. Night Shyamalan

"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothing shows through."
– Paul Valéry, Mauvaises Pensées et Autres (1941)

It seems to me that the more books I write the less people there are who read them.

I loved THE FREEZER DOOR and TOUCHING THE ART. I of course plan to read TERRY DACTYL the moment I get my hands on it.

"A creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism – you learn this as you go on."
- Will Self

“One thing I’ve learned as a published author is that it’s all about the title,” he said.

“Yes, I’ve learned the same thing from my work as a bookseller,” I said.

– John Tottenham, Service

"Yes, I lived in an exorbitant fantasy world, but the actions I fantasized about were doable. The question was, should we take risks and allow ourselves to dream, or avoid risks and reject dreams? I always preferred to take risks, and that was the choice I made my whole life."
– Sakine Cansız