“I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it.”

"Daddy’s Little Pumpkin" (Prine, Pat McLaughlin)
Song lyrics, The Missing Years (1991)

Interview with Tidal Magazine, Issue 7 http://www.tidal-mag.com/magazine/girl-on-the-verge

Morning and Evening Thoughts

Response in a pamphlet Writers Take Sides : Letters About the War in Spain from 418 American Authors (1938) by the American Writers League, which asked various authors: "Are you for or are you against Franco and fascism?".

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Source: The Titan's Curse

Science and Spirit interview (2004)
Context: We all eat or are eaten. That's the way life works, it's a greater rhythm. And that's why science and the understandings it has uncovered can be a source of joy.
This all relates to assent, a very important Judeo-Christian concept. "Thy will be done" is a God-kind of assent. "God works in mysterious ways," and you're supposed to give assent even if you don't like it. As a religious naturalist, I think of assent differently. Assent is saying, "Okay, for whatever reason, this is the way life works. It's an acceptance of what is. After that fundamental acceptance, I can live my life to minimize suffering and promote as much as good as I can, and try through whatever work I do to help others." We can't get around death, but we can get around poverty. We can try to avoid women being brutalized. We can curb environmental degradation.
One can start from the perspective of a religious naturalist or from the perspective of the world religions and arrive at the same place: a moral imperative that this Earth and its creatures be respected and cherished.

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)

Section 13 (closing words)
The Einstein Intersection (1967)