Line Crossed Quotes & Sayings

Recovered. Had my personality crossed over that border, whatever and wherever it was, to resume life within the confines of normal? Had I stopped arguing with my personality and learned to straddle the line between sane and insane? — Susanna Kaysen

Lot a folks think if you talk back to you husband, you crossed the line. And that justifies punishment. You believe that line?"
I scowl down at the table. "You know I ain't studying no line like that."
"Cause that line ain't there. Except in Leroy's head. Lines between black and white ain't there either. Some folks just made those up, long time ago. And that go for the white trash and society ladies too. — Kathryn Stockett

I crossed a line by making his family's personal business my own. But isn't that what friendship is? Isn't that what love is? It's more than caring and laughing and inspiring. It's about taking hurt and anger off people's shoulders and helping to carry the weight. It's more important to love people on the worst days than their best. — Katie Kacvinsky

You can do something that walks a line, and invariably, whatever that line is, it will be crossed by people who don't know any better and want to ape the success. — David Fincher

Look at that symbol,' she said, pointing to the top of a page. Above what Harry assumed was the title of the story (being unable to read runes, he could not be sure), there was a picture of what looked like a triangular eye, its pupil crossed with a vertical line. 'I never took Ancient Runes, Hermione.' 'I know that, but it isn't a rune and it's not in the syllabary, either. All along I thought it was a picture — J.K. Rowling

Charlotte couldn't allow herself to dwell on how it felt to hold Eddie's hand - as if all that mattered in the world were expressed in that touch; as if she would be safe and happy forever because this wonderful man wanted to be beside her; as if doves had come to nestle and coo beseechingly in her bosom. No, she really couldn't allow herself to dwell on that, especially if doves were involved. Doves crossed the line. As they often do. — Shannon Hale

The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant
Once there was a race between a rabbit and an eggplant. Now, the eggplant, as you know, is a member of the vegetable kingdom, and the rabbit is a very fast animal.
Everybody bet lots of money on the eggplant, thinking that if a vegetable challenges a live animal with four legs to a race, then it must be that the vegetable knows something.
People expected the eggplant to win the race by some clever trick of philosophy. The race was started, and there was a lot of cheering. The rabbit streaked out of sight.
The eggplant just sat there at the starting line. Everybody knew that in some surprising way the eggplant would wind up winning the race.
Nothing of the sort happened. Eventually, the rabbit crossed the finish line and the eggplant hadn't moved an inch.
The spectators ate the eggplant.
Moral: Never bet on an eggplant. — Daniel Pinkwater

There is a fine line between humility and humiliation, and when Augustine's critics, both loyal and disloyal, fault him for morbid self-criticism, they generally mean to imply that he has crossed the line. You can have a relationship with another person only if you know something of humility; otherwise your ego gets in the way. If, however, you are humiliated instead of humbled, there is no 'you' to enter into a relationship. Massilians and Pelagians had differing understandings of when humility before God became too much of a good thing, but they had common cause in not liking Augustine's scruples about the human will to relate to God. If everything about the soul's relationship to God is God's doing, including the very desire to be in relation, where exactly does the soul surface in its redemption? The Word seems to have become a monologue. — James Wetzel

When you draw a line in the sand, be careful it is not low tide. — Dixie Waters

I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation. — Raymond Carver

I have been in relationships where a man has disrespected me, and I don't need to be friends with that man anymore. I don't want to be the one going, 'I'm cool, because I'm friends with all my exes.' There's a reason why you're called an ex. I crossed you off my list. Moving on. You cross a line, you need to know that you're going to walk this earth knowing that there's an individual who has no respect for you. — Zoe Saldana

I have never sold my story, done 'Hello!' magazine, any of that stuff. I'm not guilty of exploiting my private life for cash and then saying, 'Oh, I don't want to talk about my private life.' I've never crossed that line. — Paul Merton

I checked my gear, my pockets, my shoelaces, and realized that I had crossed the line between making sure I was ready and trying to postpone the inevitable. — Jim Butcher

When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. — Harriet Tubman

There's a narrow line between love and hate sometimes, you know. And it can be crossed unwittingly. — Charles Todd

She leaned toward him and hissed, "I told you what would happen if you crossed the line and tried to get into my shorts! The only reason I'm not making you hurt even more is because someone might wonder about the screams. From now on, you're going to sleep on the deck." The tone in her voice was deadly as she continued. "If you ever try anything like that again, my next problem will be working out how to dispose of your corpse. — Robert Adrian

A moment comes in war when the last line must be crossed. The line that separates what you hold dear from what total war demands. If he couldn't cross that line, the battle was over, and he was lost.
His heart, the war.
Her face, the battlefield.
With a cry only he could hear, the hunter turned.
And ran. — Rick Yancey

There is a fine line between sarcasm and hostility, you seemed to have crossed it. What's up? — Cassandra Clare

I'd told Taker before the promo that I was gonna stick it to him and he told me to go for it. However, I crossed the line and insulted him by saying what I said. I can't believe the lack of respect I showed him and so many of the other guys in the locker room during my first month in the company, especially since I knew how important the hierarchy of the business was (and still is). Respect your elders. — Chris Jericho

You might imagine that a person would resort to self-mutilation only under extremes of duress, but once I'd crossed that line the first time, taken that fateful step off the precipice, then almost any reason was a good enough reason, almost any provocation was provocation enough. Cutting was my all-purpose solution. — Caroline Kettlewell

Not unless he crossed the line.' Holly supposed she should let this go, but she was tired of Vera's bullying. 'Ah, that line . . .' Vera leaned back in her chair with her eyes half-closed. 'If only we knew exactly where it was.' There — Ann Cleeves

I don't know him, Jo, and neither do you. Going to his house without telling anyone is dangerous."
"Who do we really know until we've crossed that line? No one. But for once, in a very long time, I felt ... free. Free from my guilt and self-hatred. Free from the pain I feel every damn day. But it took me crossing that line, Tyler, to find that freedom. — Brandy Nacole

I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land. — Harriet Tubman

I don't know if this is advice, but I remember this guy in high school who came off like he'd been with a lot of women. He said, "Dude, what girls sometimes like is the unexpected." There were these girls who were always giving him tittie twisters, and he kept warning them, "I'm going to do it back." I'm thinking, There's no way. But sure enough, one girl crossed the line and he did. — Jon Heder

Tears streamed down my face as I crossed the finish line. I was a new person, a runner. — Thomas King

If I had some idea of a finish line, don't you think I would have crossed it years ago? — Richard M. DeVos

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ZAZEN First of all, you have to sit down, which you're probably already doing. The traditional way is to sit on a zafu cushion on the floor with your legs crossed, but you can sit on a chair if you want to. The important thing is just to have good posture and not to slouch or lean on anything. Now you can put your hands in your lap and kind of stack them up, so that the back of your left hand is on the palm of your right hand, and your thumb tips come around and meet on top, making a little round circle. The place where your thumbs touch should line up with your bellybutton. Jiko says this way of holding your hands is called hokkai jo-in,113 and it symbolizes the whole cosmic universe, which you are holding on your lap like a great big beautiful egg. — Ruth Ozeki

We will martyr ourselves, suffering under the weight of a non-reciprocal relationship until some part of us bursts in protest. Suddenly, we lose our mind, and allowing ourselves to heap all manner of nastiness, name calling, patronizing, death threats on the "deserving" jerk who has it coming after all we do for him/her! As the final insult rings across the room and we regain consciousness, we are horrified by what has come out of our mouth. After all, we LOVE these people, and we quickly move into anxious terror that this time we have gone too far . . . this time we crossed the line and they will leave us. So, we hunker back down and the martyrdom begins again. It's a terrible cycle. — Mary Crocker Cook

All of them would understand, as he did now, that he had crossed a line in himself, he had left their world behind, the decent world of tea parties and suburban witticisms. — Damon Galgut

As a child I thought that I would never grow up, that I could will it so. And then I realized, quite recently, that I had crossed some line, unconsciously cloaked in the truth of my chronology. How did we get so damn old? I say to my joints, my iron-colored hair. Now I am older than my love, my departed friends. Perhaps I will live so long that the New York Public Library will be obliged to hand over the walking stick of Virginia Woolf. I would cherish it for her, and the stones in her pocket. But I would also keep on living, refusing to surrender my pen. — Patti Smith

He laughed and tightened his hold on her, suddenly conscious of the fact that he'd crossed an
invisible line. — Maisey Yates

Part of loving kids is laying down fencelines. They need to know immediately when they've crossed a line; otherwise the lesson doesn't get learned. — Carew Papritz

Nobody Beats Us! served as our main trigger ... We practiced using trigger words, private verbal keys, which unlocked certain thoughts for us. We had a half-dozen phrases-some dealt with maintaining our technique, two dealt with maintaining our technique, two dealt with our stroke rating. The most powerful phrase was 'Nobody Beats Us!' According to our plan, when I said these words to Paul toward the end of the race, we would immediately shift into our final sprint, rowing as high and hard as possible, straight through, until we crossed the finish line. — Brad Alan Lewis

The difference was not that one was a pessimist and the other an optimist, it was that one's pessimism had led to an ethos of fear, and the other's pessimism had led to a noisy, fractious disdain for Everything-That-Was. One shrank, the other flailed. One toed the line, the other crossed it out. Much of the time they were at loggerheads, and because Willy found it so easy to shock his mother, he rarely wasted an opportunity to provoke an argument. If only she'd the wit to back off a little, he probably wouldn't have been so insistent about making his points. Her antagonism inspired him, pushed him into ever more extreme positions, and by the time he was ready to leave the house and go off to college, he had indelibly cast himself in his chosen role: as malcontent, as rebel, as outlaw poet prowling the gutters of a ruined world. — Paul Auster

I had been thinking independently about our ability to forget things that happened, specifically, events that clearly were wrong, that crossed the line. It seemed to me during the 2000 election recount that the media's narrative was being orchestrated. Shockingly, after the Supreme Court decision, the media simply said, "Time to move on," end of reporting: "Here's the new story." And everyone forgot. — Robert Kane Pappas

One thing is to escape from prison, but what the Texas 7 did that night crossed the line they should have never crossed. — David Travis

Romeo appeared in front of us, crossed his arms over his wide chest, and stared at me and Braeden. Braeden didn't seem to mind the death glare he was receiving. "You're looking awful cozy over here with my girl."
"I was just schooling our girl here on the ways of the world," Braeden replied smoothly.
"Our girl?" Romeo repeated.
"Don't get your panties in a twist." Braeden grinned.
I interrupted their macho talk with some talk of my own. "He was asking about Missy."
Romeo grinned.
Braeden dropped his arm from around me and gave me a look of betrayal. "What happened to brother-sister confidentiality?"
I laughed.
"Dude, there's a hot girl in line over there," Romeo said, motioning with his chin. "Go get in line behind her."
Braeden turned and a slow smile spread across his stubbled jaw. "Day-um," he said. "Good looking out, Rome." He held up his fist and Romeo pounded his against it.
"Tutor girl," Braeden said, and then he was gone. — Cambria Hebert

The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but your rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. — Jay McInerney

So what do you think?' He asked, holding up the book.
'I think Salinger is a closet paedophile,' I replied placidly and was surprised and comforted by this minuscule, acidic, bitter Sylvia Plath like mocking, sniping tone that had crept into my voice. 'The main character Seymour is a fully grown man and a pervert who befriends young girls with his storytelling and swimming, just to get close enough to groom them in preparation for the inevitable sexual assault he lusts after. You might have noticed for example in A Perfect Day For Bananafish he grabs the young girls-'
'Sybil.'
'He grabs Sybil's ankles while lying on the beach and again when he pushes her in the water,' I continued. 'He goes too far when he kisses the bottom of her foot which makes even a four-year-old yell out in fear, knowing a line had been crossed. Frustrated Seymour walks away and goes back to his hotel where he kills himself in shame. — J.D. Gallagher

Wow," she whispered. "Gorgeous."
"Yeah," he said, looking at her.
She laughed. "That's cheesy."
He grinned. "You liked it."
"No, I didn't."
He peered at her over his dark sunglasses, letting his gaze slip past her face.
She followed his line of sight and realized that her nipples were pressing eagerly against the thin white cotton of her shirt. "That's because I'm cold," she said and crossed her arms over her chest.
He laughed. "It's seventy five degrees."
"Downright chilly," she said, nose in the air.
Grinning, he reeled her in, and with Thor (the dog) protesting between them, he kissed the living daylights out of her. — Jill Shalvis

I cry looking at our reality, through slave eyes. I bet they would say our generation has crossed the line. — Delano Johnson

I tend to be a person who starts with the presumption that I should trust you until you abuse the privilege, and then our relationship is forever changed. That's a very big line, and chances are it's not going to work if it's crossed. I warn people that this is how I'm going to deal with it. — Penny Pritzker

The moment I took hold of the line, I felt the mighty tug of the wind coursing into my palm and wrist, and there I stayed, transfixed. The pwer in that topgallant sail suddenly awed me, and yet it was among the smaller sails on the mast. It was a mere speck on the ocean, catching an infinitesimal fraction of all the howling winds that crossed the wide seas. I literally could not move a muscle, trying in vain to absorb the magnitude of it.
And there was something else, as well. This wind was blowing me westward. I was hurtling into my own predestined future. With neither star nor compass, I knew the heading of this wind. It bore down on a lonely river crossing in one of the last wild places on Earth, where timber moaned in a gale, and frosty grass sparkled in the dawn, and beasts lumbered and thundered the valley. A sacred place protected by Comanches. — Mike Blakely

I am not in favor of killing - that for me is the line not to be crossed. — Margarethe Von Trotta

This past year - if you'd have tried, you'd have seen even more clearly the futility of trying to change the world without the efforts of everybody else on Earth. You saw and smelled and drank the evidence of six billion disasters that can only be mended by six billion people. || A thousands years ago this wouldn't have been the case. If human beings had suddenly vanished a thousand years ago, the planet would have healed overnight with no damage. Maybe a few lumps where the pyramids sand. One hundred years ago - or even fifty years ago - the world would have healed itself just fine in the absence of people. But not now. We crossed the line. the only thing that can keep the planet turning smoothly now is human free will forged into effort. Nothing else. That's why the world has seemed so large in the past few years, and time so screwy. It's because Earth is now totally ours. — Douglas Coupland

Ride with an outlaw, die with him," he added. "I admit it's a harsh code. But you rode on the other side long enough to know how it works. I'm sorry you crossed the line, though."
Jake's momentary optimism had passed, and he felt tired and despairing. He would have liked a good bed in a whorehouse and a nice night's sleep.
"I never seen no line, Gus," he said. "I was just trying to get to Kansas without getting scalped. — Larry McMurtry

A little recognition of the escapes we made, of the finish line we crossed, only to find so many other finish lines waiting after it. — David Levithan

Ethics and I had crossed paths recently, and I'm not sure that I fell on the right side of the morality line. — S.C. Stephens

For it was the one that I would have chosen above all others, convinced as I was, with a botanist's satisfaction, that it was not possible to find gathered together rarer specimens than these young flowers that at this moment before my eyes were breaking the line of the sea with their slender heads, like a bower of Pennsylvania roses adorned a Cliffside garden, between whose blooms is contained the whole tract of ocean crossed by some steamer, so slow in gliding along the blue, horizontal line that stretches from one stem to the next that an idle butterfly, dawdling in the cup of a flower which the ship's hull has long since passed, can wait, before flying off in time to arrive before it, until nothing by the tiniest chink of blue still separates the prow from the first petal of the flower towards which it is steering. — Marcel Proust

People are pushing, chesting up, there's much half-assed shoving and garbled smack talk about who dissed who and who crossed whose line and of course everybody's gotta have their boy's back. A melee, you'd call it. A fracas. Not quite a throw-down brawl right here on the sacred turf of Texas Stadium. — Ben Fountain

So you admit of your own free will that you chose to date the most dangerous Russian mobster on the FBI's radar?" I looked him right in the eye and said, "I think that you need to go, because as far as I am concerned, the government crossed a line when they sent you to monitor who I fuck. — Suzanne Steele

My past has its space, its paths, its nameplaces, and its monuments. Beneath the crossed but distinct orders of succession and simultaneity, beneath the train of synchronizations added onto line by line, we find a nameless network
constellations of spatial hours, of point-events. Should we even say 'thing,' should we say 'imaginary' or 'idea,' when each thing exists beyond itself, when each fact can be a dimension, when ideas have their regions? The whole description of our landscape and the lines of our universe, and of our inner monologue, needs to be redone. Colors, sounds, and things
like Van Gogh's stars
are the focal points and radiance of being. — Maurice Merleau Ponty

He tells them that there is a line that separates killing bugs from killing frogs, and that no matter how hard it is, that line must never be crossed — Etgar Keret

Gently, I caressed along the puckered, angry scar slanting in a long, jagged line across my lower abdomen to where it crossed the smooth, silvered scar running in a horizontal line just above my pelvis, wishing she could somehow find comfort in my touch. Chills shook my body as I ran my fingers over the still sensitive skin, and just like every night, the bitterness and anger I found myself feeling faded away into sadness as I lost myself in this tangible reminder of my child. I loved her, so much. Steam filled the room, and I eased myself into the water, allowing myself to drift back to Daniel. I missed him, almost more than I could bear. This was never supposed to have happened to us. We were supposed to make it ... we should have made it. — A.L. Jackson

Professional managers, coaches, and players have a right to question an umpire's decision if they do it in a professional manner. When they become personal, profane, or violent, they have crossed the line and must be dealt with accordingly. — Jim Evans

Has every line inside of you been crossed? Is there anything left unviolated? Are you so comfortable with your imprisonment you feel free? — Bryant McGill

You won't even know you've crossed the line until it's way back in your rearview mirror. — Barry Lyga

As one studies these preconditions, one becomes saddened by the ease with which human potentiality can be destroyed or repressed, so that a fully-human person can seem like a miracle, so improbable a happening as to be awe-inspiring. And simultaneously one is heartened by the fact that self-actualizing persons do in fact exist, that they are therefore possible, that the gauntlet of dangers can be run, that the finish line can be crossed. — Abraham Maslow

I'd done it, I'd crossed the line between accepted behavior and behavior most of the population would consider a lynching offense, and that morning I felt as real as any of the men in the Escape commercials. It had been dirty and nasty but I wanted more. — Matthew Stokoe

I had crossed de line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but dere was no one to welcome me to de land of freedom, I was a stranger in a strange land, and my home after all
was down in de old cabin quarter, wid de ole folks, and my brudders and sisters. But to dis solemn resolution I came; I was free, and dey should be free also; I would make a home for dem in
de North, and de Lord helping me, I would bring dem all dere. — Harriet Tubman

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become 'self feeders.' We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own. — Bill Hybels

They are constantly trying to drive us into a corner because we have an independent position, because we maintain it and because we tell it like it is and don't engage in hypocrisy. But there is a limit to everything. And with Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line, playing the bear and acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally. — Vladimir Putin

Bad is not an absolute, but a relative term. Ask the robber who used the cash he stole to feed his infant; the rapist who was sexually abused as a child; the kidnapper who truly believed he was saving a life. And just because you break the law doesn't mean you have intentionally crossed the line into evil. Sometimes the line creeps up on you, and before you know it, you're standing on the other side. — Jodi Picoult

And now, a heap of roses
beside the sea, white rugosa
beside the foaming hem of shore:
brave,
waxen candles ...
And we talk
as if death were a line to be crossed.
Look at them, the white roses.
Tell me where they end. — Mark Doty

He'd crossed the line, man. He'd crossed it big-time. — Wendelin Van Draanen

A pastor who lived through the Third Reich described his meetings with Nazi officials in a way that illuminates life in totalitarian societies: "[O]ne would be pushed further, step by step, until he had crossed over the line, without noticing that his spine was being bent millimeter by millimeter. — Randall L. Bytwerk

I'm just back in line with every other actor looking for a job right now and keeping my fingers crossed. — Joe Lando

Breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheat-lands bellied her taffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving beauty, that the heart of a chance watcher on the lower road tightened to wistfulness over her quality of suspended freedom. She lifted her arms, she leaned back against the wind, her skirt dipped and flared, a lock blew wild. A girl on a hilltop; credulous, plastic, young; drinking the air as she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth. — Sinclair Lewis

Eve commanded her hostage to open the door and look calm. She didn't turn around again, but Beckett knew what she'd done. She'd crossed some line she'd drawn for herself. She'd said his name, kissed him, and saved him.
She'd done what he couldn't do for himself. — Debra Anastasia

Keep up," said an irritable voice in her ear. It was Jace, who had dropped back to walk beside her. "I don't want to have to keep looking behind me to make sure nothing's happened to you."
"So don't bother."
"Last time I left you alone, a demon attacked you," he pointed out.
"Well, I'd certainly hate to interrupt your pleasant night stroll with my sudden death."
He blinked. "There is a fine line between sarcasm and outright hostility, and you seem to have crossed it. — Cassandra Clare

The moment Quan crossed a line with me, I'd have to shut him down, but either he hadn't crossed one yet or my lines weren't where I thought they were. — Lola Dodge

Sometimes you don't realize you've crossed a line until you're on the other side and can't go back. — Frank Warren

Sure, I'm gray-shading the line that separates stable and crazy, but the point is, there is a line. And I haven't completely crossed over to lunatic. — Anna Banks

it was clear that the invisible line had been crossed, the line where on one side stood potential and doubt and the putting out of feelers that could be revoked at any moment and on the other stood strong emotion, complicit smiles, and a romantic connection that exists on its own and has a presence that cannot be ignored. The world was no longer the way it was before this connection came into existence. — Anat Talshir

And for some reason, there seems to be no internal policeman for a bully that says maybe you're hurting somebody's feelings. Or worse, maybe you're going to push this perons too far and they'll do something terrible. Something's not processing correctly in a bully's head. It doesn't seem to occur to them that what they're doing is corssing a line that shouldn't be crossed. And it's really, in my mind, no different than taking on defenseless kids. You do it just because you can.
It's an exercise in power; but it's also meant to dinsintegrate someone's Self. It's meant to take away their sense of who they are. And why? Because they're not as strong, or as bit, or as witty.
Bullies are ball-less, soul-less creatures to me. And they're not just children, they're adults too.
It's a terrorist act.
It's meant to make you feel afraid. It's meant to make you feel powerless to take care of the situation you find yourself in. — Whoopi Goldberg

There was a fine line between love and hate you heard that cliche all the time. But no one told you that the moment you crossed it would be the one you least expected. You'd fall in love and crack open a secret door to let your soul mate in. You just never expected such closeness one day to feel like an intrusion. — Jodi Picoult

There is a thin line between the policeman and the criminal. The best cops are always crossed. The best cops are the ones who are able to think like criminals. But for a quirk of fate, they might have been criminals. — William Friedkin

One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And what is there? Who is there?
there beyond that field, that tree, that roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such excitedly animated and healthy men. — Leo Tolstoy

They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil. — Stephen King

A child was a temptation of the flesh, as well as of the spirit; I knew the bliss of that unbounded oneness, as I knew the bittersweet joy of seeing that oneness fade as the child learned itself and stood alone.
But I had crossed some subtle line. Whether it was that I was born myself with some secret quota embodied in my flesh, or only that I knew my sole allegiance must be given elsewhere now ... I knew. As a mother, I had the lightness now of effort completed, honor satisfied. Mission accomplished. — Diana Gabaldon

Neither knew it at the time, but a line had been crossed that could not be uncrossed- a running leap over a chasm of ignorance and misunderstanding between species and worlds ... and a baby step taken into life's endless possibilities for wonder and joy and surprise that could no more be reversed than one's first taste of chocolate.
A dog kiss. — Berkeley Breathed

The word "impossible" used to mean something. It was a line that couldn't be crossed. It was the outer edge of the safe zone.
I can't find that line anymore — Jonathan Maberry

Crayfish," I said. I dumped out a tin of water. "Really?" I nodded. "Big ones?" "Not these. You can find them, though." "Can I see?" She dropped down off the bank just like a boy would, not sitting first, just putting her left hand to the ground and vaulting the three-foot drop to the first big stone in the line that led zigzag across the water. She studied the line a moment and then crossed to the Rock. I was impressed. She had no hesitation and her balance was perfect. I made room for her. There was suddenly this fine clean smell sitting next to me. Her eyes were green. She looked around. To all of us back then the Rock was something special. It sat smack in the middle of the deepest part of the brook, the water running clear and fast around it. — Jack Ketchum

The frame had sat there for years, facing Opal, so that nobody ever really got a chance to see who or what was in it. We knew that if we asked, she would tell us, but nobody was ever rude enough to ask. What we didn't know, we didn't need to ask. Some people just don't quite get the gist of that. You can have plenty of meaningful conversations, without getting too personal. There's a line, you know, like an invisible field around people that you just knew not to enter or cross and I had never crossed it with Opal or anyone else for that matter. — Cecelia Ahern

Containment, as everyone will recall, was a rough plan for stopping the Communists any time they crossed a certain line dividing our half of the world from theirs. — M. Stanton Evans

As a revolutionary people, we Americans won a probable victory over the best and biggest army in the world because we learned to fight from the Indians. You can do a lot of damage with a Kentucky rifle from behind a tree. You don't put on a peaked hat and a red coat and white leggings and crossed white bandoleers with a big silver buckle in the center of the X and march uphill into a line of Howitzers loaded with chain and chopped horseshoes. — James Lee Burke

I crossed the line." "The line shifts." Now he gave those shoulders a quick, impatient shake. "If the law, if justice has no compassion, no fluidity, no humanity, how is it justice? — J.D. Robb

Sometimes it's hard to know when you've crossed the line from conscientious to compulsive. When you're in the thick of an assignment, it's easy to believe that you must spend so much time brainstorming, researching, writing, testing, revising or what-have-you. Often, it's only after you've been working for hours on end that you realize that half the work you've been doing wasn't actually necessary and that you've just wasted a lot of time. — Michael Law

[A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret. — Michael Chabon

Lydia screamed. The car began to swerve all over the street. "YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU!" She crossed the double yellow line at high speed, directly into oncoming traffic. Horns sounded and cars scattered. We drove on against the flow of traffic, cars approaching us peeling off to the left and right. Then just as abruptly Lydia swerved back across the double line into the lane we had just vacated. Where are the police? I thought. Why is it that when Lydia does something the police become nonexistent? — Charles Bukowski

But we're not God. We're humans, and at the end of the day we have to march to the beat of a certain kind of drum. And if you step outside too far into thinking you're some sort of deity that can transcend law and order, then you've crossed a line. — Ronald Perelman

Did you just spit something?" he asked, sounding curious and amused ... "Never would have pegged you as a spitter, Vivian."
Eyes suddenly wide, I sat straight up, almost levitating from the bed, then rallied. "Only when it's something not worth swallowing."
Hello line, I believe I just crossed over you. I distinctly heard Clark choke on a sip of what I assumed was his Scotch. — Alice Clayton

You know, every bad guy was once good until he crossed a line. I don't think they come out of the womb being assholes. — Laurann Dohner

I wanted to play Dracula because I wanted to say: 'I've crossed oceans of time to find you.' It was worth playing the role just to say that line. — Gary Oldman

There's a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence. We crossed it on the Passengers record. — Larry Mullen Jr.

For better or worse, we'd ended those nights together. Not last night, and when he left me alone, we'd crossed a line. He'd breached some new invisible boundary I'd never known was there. — Meredith Wild

We have begun to slam doors, and to throw things. I throw my purse, an ashtray, a package of chocolate chips, which breaks on impact. We are picking up chocolate chips for days. Jon throws a glass of milk, the milk, not the glass: he knows his own strength, as I do not. He throws a box of Cheerios, unopened.
The things I throw miss, although they are worse things. The things he throws hit, but are harmless.
I begin to see how the line is crossed, between histrionics and murder. — Margaret Atwood

Rosalie had never been one to question or accuse, just to forgive
but I guess everyone had their limits when it came to tolerance levels, and I'd crossed the line. — Embee

A line, once crossed, can never be uncrossed. — Nancy Mairs

Jesus won't cut you off before you're through With him you won't never get a crossed line, And when your bill comes it'll all be properly itemised He's the telephone repairman on the switchboard of my life. The phone line to the saviour's always free of interference He's in at any hour, day or night And when you call J-E-S-U-S you always call toll-free He's the telephone repairman on the switchboard of my life. — Terry Pratchett