“If I could just write it down in a piece of paper, then maybe she could get a decent night's sleep, eat a little of her dinner. Maybe she could have a minute's worth of peace.”

“If Mom knows that she isn't gonna receive welfare if she doesn't tell us who Dad is, y'know maybe she'll be a little more careful, maybe. Or maybe she gives us a list, say 'Well it could be one of five'. I mean, y'know, I don't know what she's gonna do, but at some point we're gonna see her cooperate.”

“Maybe in fact it was better to have Saddam in there. Maybe Saddam, as bad as he was-was not the worst we could get. Maybe chaos was the worst we could get. That's the truth.”

“Well maybe the princess shouldn't be a damsel and she could save herself.”

“There was no twinkle in his eyes.
"Maybe I just love some of you. Maybe not enough."
Tiger Lily blinked at him, and she didn't understand how anyone could only love a part. Her greedy heart didn't work that way.”

“Maybe we’ll admit this thing we have is perfect, not worth messing around with. And stay together forever. If you’re interested, that is.”
She glanced away. “I could think about that.”
He buried his face in her neck. “Think fast”

“He sometimes wondered if she had become involved with him just so that she could cry in someone's arms. Maybe she can't cry alone, and that's why she needs me.”

“Maybe all of her strangeness, her curse, her always feeling like an outsider, had all existed so that she could belong here, with Peter.”

“Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.”

“I was happy, but I am now in possession of knowledge that this is wrong. Happiness isn't so bad for a woman. She gets fatter, she gets older, she could lie down, nuzzling a regiment of men and little kids, she could just die of the pleasure. But men are different, they have to own money, or they have to be famous, or everybody on the block has too look up to them from the cellar stairs.”