Everything that goes on in your whole life is a result of molecules rushing around somewhere in your brain.
why something and not nothing? why music and not noise?
Naturally a direct comparison of terrorist and novelist is complete nonsense. But there was once a time when the novelist also had some influence on how his contemporaries thought, the way they saw the world, the way they lived.
In a crisis the true facts are whatever other people say they are.
That's the world out there, little green apples and infectious disease.
My attitudes aren't directed toward characters at all. I don't feel sympathetic toward some characters, unsympathetic toward others. I don't love some characters, feel contempt for others. They have attitudes; I don't.