Quotes & Sayings About Fine Lines

It's the way I make music, I will take two ideas and smash them together and if they sit well together for me then that's fine, and it's the same with the lyrics - if I see a couple of lines and I like the way they look on the page then I'll use them. I find they take on a meaning of their own, it's very difficult to explain how I actually go about all that. — Thighpaulsandra

Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo's face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiseling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way to himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: I love him. He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Line is so versatile - you can do a fine, tight, closely observed description or simply put a line around an idea - like a cartoonist. — Stan Smith

Most great entrepreneurs I know are nothing like the other kids. They're almost like tangent lines - those lines that seem to go nowhere. Nothing connects them, until they get out in the real world. Then they connect just fine. — Barbara Corcoran

There is a fine line between optimism and delusion. I cross it often. — Hal Elrod

There's a fine line between information and propaganda. — Jenny Holzer

There is a very fine line between hobby and mental illness. — Dave Barry

He saw himself in her eyes, suspended in two shining drops of bright water, himself
dark and tiny, in fine detail, the lines about his mouth, everything there, as if her eyes
were two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact. — Ray Bradbury

There's a fine line between playing with fear and then taking bad plays and playing with no fear. — Robert Griffin III

A girl's life was defined by lines: fine lines, hairlines, bikini lines, class lines, the tightrope line between being a good girl and a slut. But there was always a moment when the lines blurred and a good girl had to decide whether to toe the line, cross the line, or stay safe behind the line that guarded her virtue. — Thea Devine

The grid is like the lines on a football field. You can play a great game in the grid or a lousy game. But the goal is to play a really fine game. — Wim Crouwel

For anyone who has ever stood before a bathroom mirror and secretly thanked The
Academy, a hilarious guide to becoming 'It' in an age where the line between fame
and infamy is as fine as a Manolo Blahnik stiletto heel. — Bonnie Fuller

Loss bites and pulls. It is a thing of hooks sunk into every part of you, parts that you would not think could feel loss like thumbs and lips, hooks moored to wind and memory so that slightest disturbance, the slightest act of recall, tugs at those fine lines. Red is the colour of loss and its smell is like burned roses. — Ian McDonald

When you think about it, there is really a fine line between being a proctologist and just being a perverted ass-freak. And according to the judge who sentenced me, that line is called a 'medical degree'. — Brad Wilkerson

When I did plays in high school and college, I never remember memorizing my lines, but once I had blocking, I had all my lines memorized. Once I had movement associated with words, it was fine. Before I had blocking, it was just text on a page. Once it became embodied, it was much easier. — Greta Gerwig

Reactionary 'sheeple' are often more attractive than, ego-driven, nihilistic, phoney,love-fearing,master-race-belief-system-victim-collectors. Fine lines there — Elizabeth Lucye Robillard

The Hum-bird paused, a long needle sliding out of the hole in its beak. It bent quickly, poking the needle into Scarlett's face. Its head popped back up and then repeated the motion in three more spots on the Jordan's face before hopping to the other side and starting over.

It hopped back and forth a few more times, pausing now and then with its injector, plumping skin and filling the fine lines in Scarlett's face. After examining its works, the needle withdrew and another one protruded, glistening pink in the dimmed light. This time the Hum-bird hopped around, paralyzing any damaging nerve clusters that over time would be bound to cause wrinkles in the skin. — April Adams

The boxes stood there, judging her. Who came up with the names for these things? Early Pregnancy Test was fine, but First Response? What was she, a 911 call? Little cardboard soldiers of doom, ready to deliver a message from the front lines that she had lost, and it was time to surrender to the truth. Never surrender! And now she was quoting cheesy 80s songs in her mind. This was how far she had fallen. — Julia Kent

Sometimes there are fine lines between people who are considered "patriots" and those who are considered "terrorists". — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Mine was something along the lines of 'This is who I am, and this is the level at which I'm going to present myself, I feel fine, and if you don't like it then you're more than welcome to look away, thank you very much.' I decided, quite simply, not to care very much at all. As long as my rear-end and stomach were hidden from the public gaze, then I considered any outfit a roaring success.
People are either going to like the look of me, or they're not. And apart from remaining vaguely clean and healthy, there's not very much I can do to control that. Is an eye-lash tint, a facial and the right handbag really going to make all that much difference?
With this decision, I think I've spared myself a lot of misery. You may look at me and see a slightly frayed, wool-clad woman with an inexplicably hefty rucksack, but I look in the mirror and simply give thanks for all I've opted out of. — Miranda Hart

I hope when this is done I'll be able to get back into my happy gardening vibe that was so healthy for me. I want to go back to my routine and my morning ritual with the compost, but it will probably be that my life will split in two. New Leaf Gardening in Wood Green will be happening in parallel to a fantasy that runs along the bottom of that screen like a ticker. Alice will be fine. Rabbit will stay up tonight, and every night. Resending and resending, reopening the page to see if she has responded, if anyone has. The spinning wheel will make my eyes hurt and everything else will go dark. — Olivia Sudjic

Do you really think that I don't have anything better to do than to spend my time thinking about you? Digging up a little of the goods on Luc Martineau?"
Fine lines appeared at the corners of his eyes and he laughed. "Sweetheart, there is nothing little about Luc's goods. — Rachel Gibson

I can learn my lines fine. It's just reading them in the first place that is the problem. — Salma Hayek

Hinduism has made marvelous discoveries in things of religion, of the spirit, of the soul. We have no eye for these great and fine discoveries. We are dazzled by the material progress that Western science has made. Ancient India has survived because Hinduism was not developed along material but spiritual lines. — Mahatma Gandhi

These be fine things, an if they be not sprites.
That'said a brave god and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him.
--Caliban
Act II, scene 2, lines 116-118) — William Shakespeare

Beauty is not the flawless perfection of youth, but the fine lines, scars, and wisdom which only living can give you. — Reyna Pryde

You cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair — Rohinton Mistry

You walk a fine line when you have a performance at a show just as you do with having celebrities attend a show - you never want the attention to be drawn too far away from the clothing. — Mia Moretti

Her hair is longer now, and fine lines bracket her mouth, parentheses around a lifetime of words I was not around to hear. — Jodi Picoult

The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other. — Sam Altman

There's a fine line between marketing and grand theft. — Scott Adams

There's a very fine line between anxiety and excitement. If you don't let anxiety stop you, you can nudge it over the line. — Robert Anthony

Don't get me wrong, I like to cuddle. But there is such a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so that they can't get away. — Dave Attell

In politics, there's a fine line between too much conviction and too little. — Robert J. Samuelson

Pushing myself against my own will really, because some of this stuff is hard. I don't consider myself to be a great guitar player, so pushing myself as a guitar player or pushing myself as a singer, as a performer, and just riding that fine line between being so hard on yourself that it's counter-productive and being so hard on yourself that nothing is ever good enough is what drives me. — Cody Johnson

There are celestial sights more dazzling, spectacles that inspire more awe, but to the thoughtful observer who is privileged to see them well, there is nothing in the sky so profoundly impressive as the canals of Mars. Fine lines and little gossamer filaments only, cobwebbing the face of the Martian disk, but threads to draw one's mind after them across the millions of miles of intervening void. — Percival Lowell

It is true that nothing here makes any sense, but this is no great misfortune; I learned from the islanders that sense is not of any particular importance, that its presence may even disrupt the clean lines of certain pictures and cast a cloud over their fine light, while laments on the absurdity of being struck me as self-indulgent and objectionable even before my stay on the island. Once you get a little used to a terrain cleansed of sense, you realize that there is amusement enough to be had here, and that only in its emptiness can the magic crystals of beauty originate. And in this space something is revealed: the silent dignity of people, animals, plants and objects, that is able to stir graciousness, compassion and reverence. — Michal Ajvaz

There is sometimes only a very fine line between deliberation and procrastination. — Paul Allen Walker

It's the sketch Edward did of me before he went away, the one he said was fine but didn't want to keep. It's as if he's drawn me not once but twice. In the main drawing I have my head turned to the right. It's so detailed, you can see the tautness of my neck muscles and the arch of my clavicle. But underneath or over that there's a second drawing, barely more than a few jagged, suggestive lines, done with a surprising energy and violence: my head turned the other way, my mouth open in a kind of snarl. The two heads pointing in opposite directions give the drawing a disturbing sense of movement.

Which one's the pentimento, and which the finished thing? And why did Edward say there was nothing wrong with it? Did he not want me to see this double image for some reason? — J.P. Delaney

It's a fine murdering day, (sang Bunch) And as balmy as May And the sleuths from the village are gone." A rattle of crockery being dumped in the sink drowned the next lines, but as the Rev. Julian Harmon left the house, he heard the final triumphant assertion: "And we'll all go a'murdering today! — Agatha Christie

There is a very fine line between listening and stalking. — Jay Baer

Don't hoo, hoo, hoo me. There's a fine line between hoo, hoo, hoo and hiel, hiel, hiel. — Bobcat Goldthwait

There's a fine line between participation and mockery. — Scott Adams

Why must we draw these lines, these fine distinctions, these labels and barriers that set us apart? Ace and nat and joker, capitalist and communist, Catholic and Protestant, Arab and Jew, Indian and Latino, and on and on everywhere, and of course true humanity is to be found only on our side of the line and we feel free to oppress and rape and kill the "other," whoever he might be. (From the Journal of Xavier Desmond) — George R R Martin

Theologically, the demand for "circumcision" can take many forms, even today. It appears whenever one thinks along these lines: "Faith in Christ is fine as far as it goes, but your relation to God is not really right and your salvation not adequate unless ... " It does not matter how the sentence is completed. Whenever such fine print is introduced to qualify trust/faith, there is "circumcision," and Paul's defense of the adequacy of trust/faith can come into its own again. The Galatian situation is never far; in fact, it is all too familiar. — Leander E. Keck

From the rugged cliffs of Cape Liptrap peninsula jutting bravely into the swells of Bass Strait, the coast arcs southeast, hugging the waters of Waratah Bay with sweeping flat lines of fine pale sand and knotty scrub. — Tim Cope

There's such a fine line between defeat and losing. — Gary Newbon

She takes another sip of her drink. She looks around the bar. I look at the fine muscles in her neck, at the two points of her clavicle. Her grief has not so much changed her as stripped her down, stripped her body and her face. Maybe she should do what I do. She could stand next to me and the students could draw our lines. I order another bourbon, count the count. — Adam Berlin

It seems a fine line between being a matador and being a rodeo clown — Jase Robertson

The whole surface of her body was covered with a coat of fine sand, which hid the details and brought out the feminine lines; she seemed a statue gilded with sand. — Kobo Abe

The intricate engraving, fine lines, beading and milgrain accents echo an era defined by elaborate embellishments. — Vera Wang

There's a very fine line between giving someone the Heimlich maneuver and dry-humping a stranger. — Demetri Martin

As I regard physics and psychology as complementary types of examination, I am certain that there is an equally valid way that must lead the psychologist 'from behind' (namely, through investigating the archetypes) into the world of physics. As an example of background physics, I shall discuss a motif that occurs regularly in my dreams - namely, fine structure, in particular doublet structure of spectral lines and the separation of a chemical element into two isotopes. — Wolfgang Pauli

There's a fine line between support and stalking and let's all stay on the right side of that. — Joss Whedon

There are movies that require fantasy and slightly more fantastical acting. Lines that are good for certain movies, in real life circumstances, would be absolutely unbelievable things to really say, and you would look at these people like they're freaks for conversing that way. But somehow for certain styles of movies, it works, and it seems fine. — Christian Bale

There's a fine line between giving the sense of freedom and being too free. — Joe Satriani

If songs were lines
In a conversation
The situation would be fine — Nick Drake

Sirus let his gaze drop and linger over the fine lines of Grey's body that no amount of winter clothing could hide, and he cursed under his breath at the waste of such a thing of perfection attached to such an asshole of a person. — Cameron Dane

There is a fine line between passion and gas. — Jeff Goldblum

Calo had dark liquor-colored skin and hair like an inky slice of night; the tautness of the flesh around his dark eyes was broken only by a fine network of laugh-lines (though anyone who knew the Sanza twins would more readily describe them as smirk-lines). An improbably sharp and hooked nose preceded his good looks like a dagger held at guard position. — Scott Lynch

Fine natures are like fine poems; a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you read on. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line. — Alexander Pope

There's a fine line between heartbreak and love. It's a compliment when someone tells me my music put them in a place when where they were almost in tears. — Chris Botti

There's a fine line between being colorful and being an asshole, and I hope I'm still just colorful. — Ted Turner

Realizing its fundamental importance in understanding spectral lines, in atomic physics and in the theory of how light and electrons interact, quantum electrodynamics, Pauli and Heisenberg were determined to derive it from quantum theory rather than introducing it from the start. They believed that if they could find a version of quantum electrodynamics capable of producing the fine structure constant, it would not contain the infinities that marred their theories. — Arthur I. Miller

I began to write poetry in high school, and would ride miles over sandy roads in the fine hills around Cedar Rapids, repeating the lines over and over until I had them right, making some of the rhythm of the horse help. — Paul Engle

Mrs. Allan's face was not the face of the girlbride whom the minister had brought to Avonlea five years before. It had lost some of its bloom and youthful curves, and there were fine, patient lines about eyes and mouth. A tiny grave in that very cemetery accounted for some of them; and some new ones had come during the recent illness, now happily over, of her little son. But Mrs. Allan's dimples were as sweet and sudden as ever, her eyes as clear and bright and true; and what her face lacked of girlish beauty was now more than atoned for in added tenderness and strength. — L.M. Montgomery

For artists, there's a very fine line between delusion and belief. — Brian Koppelman

There's a fine line between eccentrics and geniuses. If you're a little ahead of your time, you're an eccentric, and if you're too late, you're a failure, but if you hit it right on the head, you're a genius. — Thomas Watson Jr.

I don't think anyone ever sets out to make a crappy movie, but there are a lot of forces working against those people who are trying to make something decent. There are a lot of fine lines to walk and small battles to fight. — Bryan Lee O'Malley

I feel like I walk a very fine line between wanting someone to be open and vulnerable and honest with me and the listeners, but not wanting anyone to ever feel like I'm exploiting them. — Alison Rosen

prominent lines in the star's spectrum these will show up. Likewise, if there is a planetary nebula or a bright emission nebula in the field these will only show as small points (due to the fine emission lines of the gases involved) rather than a spread out spectrum. This makes the grating a handy tool for finding faint planetary nebula. (See Chap. 7 for more detail.) — Ken M. Harrison

There's a fine line between being a sicko and an adventurous spirit. — Doug Stanhope

I think it's OK to talk about your military service, but there's a fine line between, you know, too much and just about right. — Bob Dole

the One whom we most need to behold has made himself known. He has traced with a fine hand the lines and contours of his face. He has done so in his Word. We must search for that face, though babies continue to cry, bills continue to grow, bad news continues to arrive unannounced, though friendships wax and wane, though both ease and difficulty weaken our grip on godliness, though a thousand other faces crowd close for our affection, and a thousand other voices clamor for our attention. By fixing our gaze on that face, we trade mere human glory for holiness: — Jen Wilkin

It's sort of a fine line where you're dying to express it and then hoping no one really gets it that closely. But I'm pretty much over that. I'd really just like to be understood. — J. Robbins

Hands are difficult. You would think they would be just five quick lines, but no, they have personalities as intimate as faces. Elizabeth's hands, for instance - they are fine hands, with long fingers that remind me of tapered candles. A person one has loved - the memory of their hands. Did they flutter or sit still? Dry? Moist? Cool on a hot forehead? What? That is what I wish to express in my paintings. The memory - of the movement - of very particular hands, even though they appear to be unmoving on canvas. — Sarah Ruhl

Isn't it curious how one has only to open a book of verse to realise immediately that it was written by a very fine poet, or else that it was written by someone who is not a poet at all. In the case of the former, the lines, the images, though they are inherent in each other, leap up and give one this shock of delight. In the case of the latter, they lie flat on the page, never having lived. — Edith Sitwell

He walked among the bookstore shelves, hearing Muzak in the air. There were rows of handsome covers, prosperous and assured. He felt a fine excitement, hefting a new book, fitting hand over sleek spine, seeing lines of type jitter past his thumb as he let the pages fall. He was a young man, shrewd in his fervors, who knew there were books he wanted to read and others he absolutely had to own, the ones that gesture in special ways, that have a rareness or daring, a charge of heat that stains the air around them. — Don DeLillo

It does, Tennyson, because there's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There's a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you're on the wrong side of both lines. — Neal Shusterman

It's not the type, it's the source. I don't drink human blood."
Her forehead creased, deepening the fine lines already visible. "But you're a vampire."
"I'll just call you Dr. Obvious," I muttered. — Jeaniene Frost

Just by coincidence, Senator Teddy Kennedy and I, in the last couple of days, after several months of negotiations, have reached an agreement for an immigration proposal that we will be putting out next week, ... our proposal is along the lines of make them pay a fine of a couple thousand dollars, make them work for three years, and after three years they can get in the back of the line for a green card and then eventually become citizens. — John McCain

I would have had a clause in my contract; I would've definitely put some fine print in my contract that said, "If the president leaves, I'm leaving." That'd be the bottom line. — Joe Budden

The line is very delicate and fine between being what one might call sane or insane, well or unwell. — Ronee Blakley

When I saw my first movie, I was fine, but I thought, "Oh, my heavens. It's not about just standing there on my mark and saying these lines. I need to actually act." — Blake Lively

Sea buckthorn oil works miracles reducing fine lines and wrinkles around the eyes and some even say it has reduced the appearance of dark circles under the eyes. — Annie Needs

Theres a fine line between playing a dim-witted character and playing a cartoon. — Steven Pasquale

There is a fine line between perseverance and madness. — Lynda Obst

All integral laws of spectral lines and of atomic theory spring originally from the quantum theory. It is the mysterious organon on which Nature plays her music of the spectra, and according to the rhythm of which she regulates the structure of the atoms and nuclei. — Arnold Sommerfeld

The ... arguments against photography ever being considered a fine art are: the element of chance which enters in, finding things ready-made for a machine to record, and of course the mechanics of the medium ... I say that chance enters into all branches of art: a chance word or phrase starts a new trend of thought in a writer, a chance sound may bring a new melody to a musician, a chance combination of lines, new composition to a painter ... Chance - which in reality is not chance - but being ready, attuned to one's surroundings - and grasp my opportunity ... — Edward Weston

Darona's face bore the pinched, taut look and shadowed eyes of someone constantly in pain, but the lack of lines suggested she was younger than Jesral had first thought; middle-aged, fifty at the very most.
'You make an uncommonly fine looking noblewoman, for a Mhrydaineg commoner.'
'Thank you.' Jesral was careful to keep all tone out of her voice. Darona gave her a shrewd stare, then a slight smile.
'Self-control. Good. You must ignore me when I offend you unintentionally. They say that pain can make one waspish, but my brothers and son tell me there's been no change in my manner. I was acid-tongued long before this set in,' she held up a knotted hand, 'and taking devil's claw root has no effect on that. Rest assured, young woman, when I intend offence people are in no doubt about it. — Helen Bell

There's a fine line between pleasure and pain. Love me like a ball and chain. — Brian Setzer

But what sets me apart from other Chinese writers is that I neither copy the narrative techniques of foreign writers nor imitate their story lines; what I am happy to do is closely explore what is embedded in their work in order to understand their observations of life and comprehend how they view the world we live in. In my mind, by reading the works of others, a writer is actually engaging in a dialogue, maybe even a romance in which, if there is a meeting of the minds, a lifelong friendship is born; if not, an amicable parting is fine, too. — Mo Yan

There is a fine line between stubborn and stupid. — Pete Dexter

Throw massive amounts of deception and the father of lies (yes, I'm referring to Satan) into the mix and you now have ignorance bordering on the fine lines of wickedness and evil. It's easy to be lured into something we hear about, but cannot actually see. — K.J. Masters

As Sommerfeld said in his famous text "Spectral Lines and Atomic Constitution," on which a generation of physicists learned the subject, "In the fine structure constant e is the representative of the electron theory, h the appropriate representative of the quantum theory, c comes from relativity and characterizes it in contrast to classical theory. — Emilio Segre

Sometimes you can play against type, or you can just repeat what they've already done. It can be an obstacle; it's a very fine line. — Nicolas Winding Refn