"There is a fine line between showing off and displaying a mental ability that is interesting and entertaining." —Chuck Hickok, Mentalism, Incorporated

There's a thin line between slapstick and tragedy, says thinker's comedian Stewart Lee in Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle.

Inspired by Dr. Amy Wygant.

(This one is dedicated to all the painters out there.)

"There is a fine line between success and failure in fashion innovation."
—Lucy Montgomery

There's a fine line between the Atlantic and the Pacific:

This is a sliding tiles game from 1915.

There is "the finest line between unique and odd" (Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes, 2008).

"Chekhov's stories tread the finest line between a newspaper account and a fairy tale.  Inferior writers step over the line one way or the other." —Howard Moss, Minor Monuments (1986)

"There is only the finest line between collecting and compulsion.  More than half the people you see shopping at flea markets have serious psychiatric disorders and don't even know it." —Matt Maranian, Pad: The Guide to Ultra-Living (2000)

"There is only the finest line between 'I am dreaming' and 'I am in a dream,' since the brain creates both states.  Why not cross the line?"  —Deepak Chopra, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul (2009)

"It's a fine line between standing along the shore like an idiot with a stick in your hands and going fishing."
—Ethan Wolff, Frommer's NYC Free & Dirt Cheap

Our friend Teresa at Frog Blog posts about the fine line between giving up and seeing how much more one can take.

We've previously noted that even a squiggle isn’t immune to the corruption inherent in transliteration.  Here's our newly updated pictorial study of how Laurence Sterne's elegant and eloquent squiggle (d)evolved through various editions of Tristram Shandy.  We call it "Lost in Transliteration."  We're proud to be the only place on the Internet that compares Dutch, French, Spanish, German, and English squiggles from literature.

Q:  What is the difference between a crevice and a question?

A:  A crevice contracts and expands and holds little bits of darkness like water, shadow and air.  A question is something used to plumb the depths of a crevice.

—Geof Huth, personal correspondence

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June writes:

"The line between art and entertainment is, of course, a porous one." —HBG2's Long-Forgotten blog