The lyrical, the meaningful, and the downright ridiculous: Top Ten Book Quotes

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, the theme is Top Ten Quotes from Books.

I am quite bad at remembering book quotes, mostly because I read fast and I read a lot, and even when something leaps out at me at the time, there's not much chance of me holding on to it for long afterwards. However, after some deliberation and some searching, here are a selection of my favourite quotes:

1. "We tiptoed around each other like heartbreaking new friends." - Jack Kerouac, On The Road

2. "I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to live. I'm not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to succeed. I'm not afraid to fall in love. I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm just afraid I might have to stop talking about myself for five minutes." - Kinky Friedman, When The Cat's Away

3. "The pleasure isn't in owning the person. The pleasure is this. Having another contender in the room with you." - Philip Roth, The Human Stain

4. "Old age isn't a battle. Old age is a massacre." - Philip Roth, Everyman

5. "I have just realised I have never seen a dead body or a real female nipple. This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac." - Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 and 3/4

6. "Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some." - Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

7. "She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you." - Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

8. "Fear cuts deeper than swords." - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones

9. "If a man opens a novel, he likes to have a masculine name on the cover; it's reassuring somehow. You never know what might happen to that external genitalia if you immerse yourself in imaginary doings concocted by someone with the goods on the inside." - Siri Hustvedt, The Summer Without Men

10. "Oh, and one other thing. Mallory is white and Jessi is black. But we don't care about that." / "Dawn is from California." / "Stacey is definitely the most fashionable of all of us." / "Claudia likes junk food and Nancy Drew mysteries." / "Kristy's stepfather is a millionaire." And so it goes. - Ann. M. Martin, The Babysitters' Club series