Take the rope apart, separate it into the small threads that compose it, and you can break them one by one. You think, 'That is all there was!' But twist them all together and you have something tremendous.
Victor Hugo, 1862, Les Misérables, pt. 2, bk. 5, ch. 10.
We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next.
Paul Auster, 16 April 1989, Sunday Times (London)
The thread breaks where it is weakest.
G Herbert, 1640, Outlandish Proverbs