1.   Who knows, maybe things will turn out better in the end.

2.   I was thinking maybe things had softened up over time.

3.   Maybe things can get worse.

4.   Maybe things did turn out as advertised, after all.

5.   Miss Nichols took a little comfort in a fragile belief that maybe things could not get any worse.

6.   This was about a decade or so ago, so maybe things have changed.