“God forgive me, I was sorry to hear that Sir W Pens maid Betty was gone away yesterday, for I was in hopes to have had a bout with her before she had gone, she being very pretty. I have also a mind to my own wench, but I dare not, for fear she should prove honest and refuse and then tell my wife.”

“My manager, who is a very timid person, often tells me that I should think before I speak. I tell her that she should actually have the guts to speak up about the things she thinks.”

“For she had embodied the Great Perhaps--she had proved to me that it was worth it to leave behind my minor life for grander maybes, and now she was gone and with her my faith in perhaps.”

“He was gone and did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth.”

“All the barriers were gone. I had unwound the string she had given me, and found my way out of the labyrinth to where she was waiting. I loved her with more than my body.”

“I always want her to know she is loved. But I will make my own mistakes, I know. I can only hope that she will forgive me for those; forgiveness is all a parent can hope for.”