In literature, the word “maybe” frequently signals uncertainty, cautious hope, or a character’s inner questioning. Willa Cather uses it to convey bitter self-reflection in My Ántonia [1], while Harriet Beecher Stowe employs it to hint at a reluctant shift in viewpoint in Uncle Tom’s Cabin [2]. Mark Twain peppers his works (e.g., Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [3, 4, 5] and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer [6, 7]) with casual “maybe” statements that capture his characters’ lingering doubts or sudden flashes of possibility. In Ecce Homo [8], Nietzsche wryly wonders if his writing “maybe” reflects his fishing prowess, revealing playful self-deprecation. Charles Dickens highlights tentative musings on aging in Great Expectations [9], and Chekhov uses “maybe” to show characters hedging their bets against menacing storms [10] or an uncertain future [11, 12]. Across these varied examples, “maybe” consistently functions as a linguistic pause—an invitation to speculate on what might yet unfold.