In the last few pages – reflections on the book he is now most famous for, The God Delusion – he takes a calmer line than in some of his recent social media excursions.
The Royal's arabesques were a beautifully calm line through which infinity seemed to pass; the Kirov's, grander but less Elysian, stretched forward ardently into infinity with so much energy pouring from the torso that the front arm seemed like a searchlight.
Their stumbles — missing Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, taking drugs — elicit a calm, firm line of questions about what they could have done or plan to do differently.
I had come in 196 calories under the allotment, which earned me a calm, congratulatory blue line on my bar graph.
An example of assertive behavior would be to tell the person who cut in front of you in line at the store in a calm voice, "I was next in line.
Sailing in a straight line on a calm day, it would take a well-equipped boat about 10 hours to get from the Libyan coast to Lampedusa, the remote Italian island which has become a beacon for tens of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge from war or poverty.
His lines have a calm and unshowy clarity that makes the occasional breakout even more striking, as when Laurie smells a freshly unboxed takeout pizza, the aroma "as full of memories as an old song on the car radio".
Wearing a simple white dress or the costume denoting Einstein (white shirt and red braces), Childs speaks her seemingly illogical, even hallucinatory lines with a calm authority, gesturing meticulously.
Tonelli named the foursome the Quietly Confident Quartet, and they exhibited a calm self-belief as they lined up for the race.
But Angela Knight, chief executive of Energy UK, was later peddling a more low-key line: "We need a calm, considered debate and want to engage all parties and consumers in the discussion".
