Quotes about maybe
page 6

“You're my friend, Danny. You understand? There's no debt between friends."
Maybe it's just that the debt gets so high you stop counting it.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Understanding

“Maybe you misunderstood.. A world without Haruka isn't a world worth saving. - Michiru/Sailor Neptune”

Naoko Takeuchi (1967) Japanese manga artist

World

“Because maybe, the best of times were yet to come. You never knew.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Time

“Maybe it was just part of growing up with someone. Once you have a rhythm and stay with it long enough, it's not hard to find again.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

Parting

“Jealous?"

"Maybe."

"No reason. I like my ladies with a pulse.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Feast of Fools

“I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it’ll make sense.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Sense

“What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to save you from your fears”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Fear, Thinking

“And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is
romance
and big things
and real dreams
that never go smash.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Dreams, Way

“And if those children are unresponsive, maybe you can't teach them yet, but you can love them. And if you love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

Love, Children

“People just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn't understand it.”

Charles Bukowski book Hollywood

Source: Hollywood

People, Understanding, Bird, Animals

“Maybe the thing to do after you roll the dice-and lose-is simply pick them up and roll them again.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

“Shame resilience is the ability to say, “This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Disappointment, Courage, Success, Hurt

“Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Variant: the people you love can surprise you every day... maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.
Source: My Sister's Keeper (2004)

“Maybe you should make me a list of people I can kill and ways in which they’re allowed to die,” he said. “You are not funny.” “I’m very funny.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

People, Way

“maybe he's falling in love with the idea of falling in love with me. Maybe he wants to be in love with someone and I've ended up in the right place at the right time.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

Love, Idea, Time

“Maybe getting around in life was nothing but map-reading. A skill that required practice. A key to unlock where you wanted to go. A legend to show where you were.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

Life, Reading

“Maybe we're all in somebody's dream. Maybe everything's a dream, and nothing else.”

David Almond book My Name Is Mina

Source: My Name Is Mina

Dreams

“I don't know what I expected from my first meeting with Peeta after the announcement. A few hugs and kisses. A little comfort maybe. Not this. I turn to Haymitch. "Don't worry, I'll get you more liquor.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Kiss

“How'd you get in here?"
She raised her eyebrows. “You pick pockets.” Kat watched his hand fly to his back pocket. “I can pick locks. Looking for this?” she asked, holding up his wallet. “Oops. Maybe I can pick pockets too.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Flying

“When somebody walks out, it leaves a hole in you. Some people fill it up, the good and the bad, and get on that way. Some people leave it open, maybe long enough to heal, maybe too long, picking at it now and then so it doesn't heal all the way.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Chasing Fire

People, Way

“I'll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who'll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.”

Orson Scott Card book Shadow of the Hegemon

Source: Shadow of the Hegemon

Kiss, Dependency

“You can't force folks to have good sense, even if they're family. Maybe especially then.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: Across the Great Barrier

Family, Sense

“I don't know if mama was right, that we each have a destiny, or if if was Lt Dan, that we are all just floating around, accidental, like on a breeze, but I think… I think… maybe… it's both happening at the same time.”

Winston Groom Forrest Gump

Source: Forrest Gump

Thinking, Time

“Maybe we all just want to feel special, even for a little while, to be fooled for a bit into feeling something besides the truth of our own ordinariness.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Truth, Fools, Feeling

“Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

World, Boy, Personality, Perfection

“Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

World, Travel, Light, Housing

“You doona want to kill me, which is a good sign. Maybe this is your way of flirting?” (Garreth)”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Pleasure of a Dark Prince

Way

“He smiled, and suddenly she knew that his words were true. Everything would be all right. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Tragedy couldn't coexist in a world with one of Colin's smiles.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

World, Smile

“As Rilke observed, love requires a progressive shortening of the senses: I can see you for miles; I can hear you for blocks, I can smell you, maybe, for a few feet, but I can only touch on contact, taste as I devour”

William H. Gass (1924–2017) Fiction writer, critic, philosophy professor

Love, Sense

“I like being on my own better than I like anything else, but I can't give up love. Maybe it's the tension between longing and aloneness that I need. My own funicular railway, holding in balance the two things most likely to destroy me.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: The Powerbook

Love

“They say talk is cheap. Maybe so. But kindness is even better—it's free! Free to give. Free to receive. Makes you wonder why there's not more of it, huh?”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

“She asks why I like her.
Might as well ask
Why I breathe.
Maybe tomorrow I won't
Breathe or like her
Anymore.
Maybe tomorrow the tides
Will stop.
Maybe tomorrow will bring
No more rainbows.
Maybe tomorrow
She will stop
Asking useless questions.”

Gail Carson Levine book The Wish

Source: The Wish

Question

“Maybe all the schemes of the devil were nothing compared to what man could think up.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

Thinking

“But then again maybe "I will" is nicer. It has a future in it.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Future

“I feel a little dizzy," said Orion. "But also wonderfully elated. I feel that I am on the verge of finding a rhyme for the word."

"Oxygen deprivation," said Foaly. "Or maybe it's just him.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

Feeling

“Maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Variant: The voice says, maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish.
Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 28

Hell

“maybe there is more to a person than a body and a mind. maybe something else figures into the mix— not a soul, exactly, but a spirit that hints you might one day be greater, stronger than you are now. a promise; a potential.”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Source: Keeping Faith

Soul, Personality

“The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don’t die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005)

People

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be kicked in the nuts as soon as they try to get back up. That wasn’t in the Bible, but maybe it should’ve been.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

“I guess life is full of maybes.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: Girl at Sea

Life

“Clary," he said. "You saved my life."
"I stabbed you. With a massive sword. You caught on fire."
His lips twitched imperceptibly. "Okay," he said. "So maybe our problems aren't like other couples.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Variant: I stabbed you. With a massive sword. You caught on fire."
His lips twitched, almost imperceptibly. "Okay, so maybe our problems aren't like other couples.
Source: City of Lost Souls

Life, Problem

“Boys! Are they always this impossible? Do they always say cryptic, indecipherable things? (Note
to self: work with Liz to adapt her boy-to-English translator into a more mobile form—like maybe a
watch or necklace.)”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Boy

“Maybe you don't need beauty sleep, but some of us aren't so lucky.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Beauty, Sleep

“It's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

Variant: I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.
Source: Hannibal

Understanding, Learning, Parting

“Maybe innocence makes its way easiest through the elemental chaos of this world…”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

World, Way

“But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is ialways the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer (1996)
Context: Maybe not, she said as we came to the car. But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.

Love, World, Way, Boy

“Maybe one morning I’ll wake up and step outside of myself to look back at the old me lying dead among the sheets.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Lying, Dead

“Maybe the new me will be different.”

Beatrice Sparks (1917–2012) American writer

Source: Go Ask Alice

“Dogs make sense. They understand hierarchy and the need to cooperate. They come when you call them. A cat though—a cat will take your number and get back to you. Maybe. If he’s in a good mood.”

Eileen Wilks Mortal Danger

Source: Mortal Danger

Dogs, Cats, Mood, Understanding

“If you think of someone's good qualities as the umeboshi in an onigiri it's as if their qualities are stuck to their back! Maybe the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people's backs.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 2

People, Thinking

“I have heard people say that they felt closer to their parents after they have died. Maybe if I treat people as if they were dead, I could get along with them better”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

People, Parent, Dead

“But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 13
Source: The Handmaid's Tale
Context: These pictures were supposed to be erotic, and I thought they were, at the time; but I see now what they were really about. They were paintings about suspended animation; about waiting, about objects not in use. They were paintings about boredom. But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men.

Women, Men

“We're as good at talking ourselves out of fear as into it, aren't we? Maybe better.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Stay

Fear

“Maybe under all that guilt and certainty that he couldn't love again, he still wanted me. I would have liked to have found out. But I didn't have the time.
Instead, I punched him.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Love, Time

“Maybe I was being too picky. Maybe I didn't want to be close to anyone. Maybe I'd just be the type who couldn't feel love all the way or something. I couldn't tell what was wrong, but what was wrong was that it just wasn't right.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Love, Way, Feeling

“Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Way

“The imporant things in life never happened by accident. But even with those things that were meant to be, sometimes you had to wait awhile and then maybe give them a little nudge.”

Nicholas Evans (1950) British producer and writer

Life, Waiting

“You been gone too long, Sula.

Not too long, but maybe too far.”

Toni Morrison book Sula

Source: Sula

“Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar," says Petta bitterly, "if it weren't for the baby."
There. He's done it again.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Thinking, Baby

“Maybe I was in love, but I was still me, after all.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Love

“and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding rush of pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart.”

Jodi Picoult book The Pact

Variant: The gun slipped on Emily's temple, and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart.
Source: The Pact

Pain, Heart

“I'm not broken, I'm ruined. Do you understand the difference? With broken maybe you can fix things. Ruined? All you can do is wait to bury me.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Understanding, Waiting

“I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Food, Clothes

“How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.”

Margaret Atwood book The Robber Bride

Source: The Robber Bride

Wisdom, Age, Learning

“well that's convenient, i guess blessings are easier to come by than i thought. maybe i should ask for blessings on my mission against all those who wear white after labor day”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“I had nightmares about what Poseidon might turn me into if I were on the verge of death-plankton maybe."
-Percy Jackson”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Death

“Bob Here's where I ask why don't you spend your time doing something safer and more boring. Like maybe administering suppositories to rabid gorillas.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: The Dresden Files, Summer Knight (2002), Chapter 10

Time

“You really love her don't you," she said.
With all my heart."
She looked as sad as I'd ever seen her.
What's your heart telling you to do?"
I don't know."
Maybe", she said gently,"You're trying to hard to hear it.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Love, Sadness, Heart

“Really, according to the shrinks, I am angry at everyone ever. Especially them.

I am all anger and resentment all the time.

Not one of them has ever suggested that maybe I lie because the world is better the way I tell it.”

Justine Larbalestier (1967) Australian young-adult fiction author

Source: Liar

Lie, World, Way, Time

“I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Failure

“Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them.
-Carrie Bradshaw”

Candace Bushnell (1958) American author

Women

“Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about is this: That’s life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what’s going on.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Life

“Get back in my cot, girl," said Gilsa. "You're sickly."
No, I'm not," said Ani.
Oh, no? Well, maybe stubbornness is a sickness, did you ever think of that?”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Girl, Thinking

“If you knew how to cook, maybe Ieat.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Cooking

“Perhaps I just wasn't scary enough. Maybe I should invest in some horns or fangs.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“Maybe in order to understand sex fully/one has to risk being destroyed by it.”

Sharon Olds (1942) American poet

Sex, Understanding

“Maybe the lesson is: Know when to brag and when to keep your mouth shut. Or: Sometimes life isn’t fair, even if you are as gifted as Athena. Or maybe: Don’t give away free tapestries.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Life

“So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 7

Children, Thinking

“Maybe it's okay to still be a kid every once in a while.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“She let herself love me for three minutes.
Can three minutes last forever? I ask myself, but already know the answer.
Probably not, I reply. But maybe they last long enough.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Love

“Maybe I am becoming a hermit,
opening the door for only
a few special animals?
Maybe my skull is too crowded
and it has no opening through which
to feed it soup?”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: The Awful Rowing Toward God

Animals

“Maybe he's been in Africa so long he has forgotten that we Christians have our own system of marriage, and it is called Monotony.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Marriage

“I know that when he has sex he laughs like the world is a perfect place. And when he did that, my hands curled into fists because I thought about touching his face like maybe I could catch joy in my hands and hold it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

World, Sex, Joy, Perfection

“I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Maybe, it's not the distance that's the problem, but how you handle it.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Problem

“Maybe that's what real friendship is -- getting so used to people that you need to be annoyed by them.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

Friendship, People

“Maybe everyone is just waiting for someone else to save them.”

Margaret Peterson Haddix Among the Brave

Source: Among the Brave

Waiting

“Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Variant: But, he thought, I keep them with precision. Only I have no luck anymore. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.
Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“And I can't die easy thinking maybe the menfolks white or black is making a spit cup out of you. Have some sympathy for me. Put me down easy, Janie, I'm a cracked plate.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Thinking

“Just curious how much I'm going for these days," Leo said. "I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe… but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks?”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Understanding

“Maybe someone will know I didn't weave crowns to draw blood; that I faught against mockery;
that I did fill the high tide of my soul with truth.
I repaid vileness with doves.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Truth, Soul, Drawing

“We shall not kill and maybe next time we even won't.”

William Faulkner book Intruder in the Dust

Source: Intruder in the Dust

Time

“But she laced her fingers through mine. I remember what she’d told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought-just maybe-we were off to a good start.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Variant: I remembered what she'd told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought - just maybe - we were off to a good start.
Source: The Last Olympian

“Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Home

“could i have loved you better? maybe. if that's true, then i'm sorry. could i have loved you more? i don't think it's possible.”

Elizabeth Noble (1968) British novelist

Source: Things I Want My Daughters to Know

Love, Thinking