I don't know what you can do if it's reported that there's been a small attack in the second- or third-largest city in country X that you have no connection to. I don't know what you're supposed to feel or how you're supposed to get into that.

I'm pretty private as a person - people generally think they know more about me than they do, because I gregariously advertise what I want known. So it pains me to think people might feel they have an insight into my personal matters, which they most certainly do not.

For whatever reason, people know that car crashes can happen but they don't live with that fear every day when they're driving, or they're able to overcome it.

People are rushed and inspired by the success of Indian writers, and are falling over themselves to write novels. Every Indian is writing a novel right now. No one wants to revise.

I guess my point in general is that, if you look closely, who is in politics to self-identify - these are the people who flip easily, from right to left, pro-Muslim to anti-Muslim, etc. - versus who, whether on the right or left, is moved by genuine interest and empathy.

It's the feeling right from the beginning that the government is not on your side, the government thinks you're going to use this opportunity to cheat them, even though you've just been through this huge trauma.

It's very good for us to say, as liberals, that we should be moved by everything, but the fact is that there's just so much competing for our attention.