Sibling Rivalry Quotes

That's the difference between you and Greta. She has better things to do. She gets involved in clubs, activities. She has friends. But you? You slump around in that room of yours
~ Carol Rifka Brunt

The mere existence of an additional child or children in the family could signify Less. Less time alone with parents. Less attention for hurts and disappointments. Less approval for accomplishments ... No wonder children struggle so fiercely to be first or best. No wonder they mobilize all their energy to have more or most. Or better still, all. ~ Adele Faber

In Eudora Welty's masterful story "Why I Live at the P.O." (1941), the narrator is engaged in a sibling rivalry with her younger sister, who has come home after leaving under suspicious if not actually disgraceful circumstances. The narrator, Sister, is outraged at having to cook two chickens to feed five people and a small child just because her "spoiled" sister has come home. What Sister can't see, but we can, is that those two fowl are really a fatted calf. It may not be a grand feast by traditional standards, but it is a feast, as called for upon the return of the Prodigal Son, even if the son turns out to be a daughter. Like the brothers in the parable, Sister is irritated and envious that the child who left, and ostensibly used up her "share" of familial goodwill, is instantly welcomed, her sins so quickly forgiven. Then ~ Thomas C. Foster

Whatever ill we bore one another, it was always within the accepted confines of sibling rivalry, but in the absence of parents to inspire that rivalry we lost confidence in ourselves, and in our love for one another. We fought for life to continue as it had always been, we fought for our right to be in the house that we loved, we fought for stature, for respect, for equality. ~ Kate Mulgrew

What are we doing with him?" Briec asked eagerly. "Are we throwing him out a window? Let's throw him out a window! Or off the roof! ~ G.A. Aiken

But a vague jealousy, one of those dormant jealousies that develop between brothers or sisters almost unnoticed until maturity, only to burst out when one of them marries or has a stroke of good fortune, kept them constantly on the alert in a fraternal, unaggressive hostility. They did love each other, yet they kept an eye on each other. ~ Guy De Maupassant

At the snowy summit of all these things, however, is the fact that you simply cannot go about locking your siblings in towers when they misbehave. It is unseemly and betrays a sad lack of creativity. ~ Catherynne M Valente

'Still too thin. You've let your hair grow out a bit, though. Trying to look pretty for your prince? I've told you time and again you're far too ugly to be saved.'

'You've got no room to talk of ugly. Your poor wife, always having to wear a blindfold to bed. If I'm too thin, it's because you've got all my weight. Palace life is making you into a unicorn.' ~ Megan Derr

You know, I don't think your brother dislikes you as much as you think. After all, he gave up a kingdom to stay with his family. ~ C.J. Milbrandt

In truth, I did not have to wonder. She would be feeling that disturbing mixture of emotions that she always summoned from me: admiration and envy, pride and a furious rivalry, a longing to see a beloved sister succeed, and a passionate desire to see a rival fall. ~ Philippa Gregory

Get done with the damn sibling rivalry and let's get back with the task at hand here so we can figure out what we're going to do. ~ Pixie Lynn Whitfield

We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. ~ Peter De Vries

Sibling rivalry was, and still is to this day, rampant in my family. We were all competing for my parents' divided attention. ~ Janine Di Giovanni

Creosote made Mandy think of the thrill of rushing through a garden sprinkler as a kid, of playing washer toss in the backyard, of spending nights in the neighbors' huge in-ground swimming pool when she was twelve, throwing glow sticks in the turquoise water during Canada Day block parties. She thought of Jud for a moment, how he'd loved doing all those things when he was a kid, but how, as he got older, it was all about popularity, sports, a life of illusion… and without warning, a totally different kind of memory filled her mind – the dull feeling of her head hitting the concrete walls near the wood shop at her old high school, the sounds of kids laughing, the sharp smell of sawdust, the buzzing of electric sanders nearby, the sound of Jud laughing while he beat her up… without realizing it, she'd started crying noiselessly. ~ Rebecca McNutt

Many toxic parents compare one sibling unfavorably with another to make the target child feel that he's not doing enough to gain parental affection. This motivates the child to do whatever the parents want in order to regain their favor. This divide-and-conquer technique is often unleashed against children who become a little too independent, threatening the balance of the family system. ~ Susan Forward

Now, glancing over ... as she knelt with her eyes closed, her fingertips touching and pointed to Heaven, and her lips shaping soft words of devotion, I had to pinch myself to keep in mind that I was sitting next to the Devil's Hairball. ~ Alan Bradley

She was quit a handsome man, my sister. ~ Wataru Watari

My sister and I never engaged in sibling rivalry. Our parents weren't that crazy about either one of us. ~ Erma Bombeck

I told my mother he looked like a deflated balloon. Greta said he looked like a small gray moth wrapped in a spider's web. That's because everything about Greta is more beautiful, even the way she says things. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

Ah, such a good pretty one.' There was a pause, 'You even got yourself dressed up. ~ Charlotte Munro

Solidarity was admirable; loyalty was the person standing next to you when the devil came to call. ~ Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson

are you because of me?
am I me because of you?
the lines have long since blurred.

if, that is, they ever existed."

from "The Complication of Sisters ~ Katherine Mariaca-Sullivan

AlmaMia was seven the night she shaved her fourteen-year-old sister's left eyebrow while the older sibling slept. ~ Magaly Guerrero

When I was writing the script, I knew didn't want to make a sports movie. I was very clear that I wanted to make a sibling rivalry story. So when I was writing the script, the football was getting in the way of the drama. One day, I saw Michael Haneke's Funny Games, which is probably the most violent film I've ever seen - but the violence is off camera. When I finished watching the film, I said, 'Hey, that's what I have to do.' Haneke gave me this solution. ~ Carlos Cuaron

Love is close to hate when it comes to sisters. You're as close as two humans can be. You came from the same womb. The same background. Even if you're poles apart, mentally. That's why it hurts so much when your sister is unkind. It's as though part of you is turning against yourself. ~ Jane Corry

I'm beginning to wish that you were an orphan, love. Can you both manage to focus on the task at hand without trying to catch up on fourteen years of sibling rivalry? ~ Maria V. Snyder

I noticed that when my daughter was born, my son really, really liked her. But then as she started getting older, and as she started crawling around our house and touching different things that were his, sibling rivalry issues started appearing. ~ Gene Luen Yang

My mom wasn't home to arbitrate, so he forced me to try to strangle him with a phone cord. ~ Felicia Day

You actually do confront your dark side, your impulses, or your feelings of sibling rivalry in Cinderella or whatever. You admit that they exist and then you work through them and conquer them and come out living happily ever after having learned something. That's one reason why the fairy tales keep having traction and meaning. ~ Catherine Hardwicke

Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn't really mix well. ~ Raquel Cepeda

Sibling Rivalry

Yes, my mother was a better mother
To my sisters and brothers,

But they were better children

Than me, the prodigal who yearned
And spurned and never returned. ~ Sherman Alexie

When he heard his father call out for Abel and he saw his borther go forth, it made him feel like he was nothing. He couldn't even say that he felt like Cain anymore. One could not feel like Cain because it had no flavor. Cain was the absence of flavor. Cain was like saliva or a Wednesday. ~ Jonathan Goldstein

When we were children, Bapi used to dress us up in the same clothes, going to Apsara for 'Titanic' or reruns of 'Dadar Kirti' and we used to be so embarrassed by that, even at six. Day before yesterday when I saw Neev and you wearing matching purple shirts, I encountered envy for the first time. You had taken on his colors, as though you were in his house already. I felt as though that moment you had stopped needing me to make you feel whole and nothing was ever going to remain the same.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') ~ Kunal Sen

There was another matter which caused much disturbance in our mind: the viciousness of sibling rivalry. We knew that kingship knows no kinship. No bridge of affection spans the abyss that separates a monarch from his sons; no bonds of affection exist between the sons of kings. Sired though they may have been by the same loins, lain in succession in the same womb and suckled the same breasts, no sooner were they old enough to know the world than they understood that they must destroy their siblings or be destroyed themselves. ~ Khushwant Singh

Jake eyed his brother. "I never forget. All data is stored in my memory banks. And one day, candy pig, you will pay."
"You 're such a geek."
"Thesbo."
"That's Jack's latest insult."
Seth gestured with his wine-glass. "A play on thespian, since Kev's into that."
"Rhymes with lesbo," Jake explained helpfully while Anna stifled a groan. "It's a slick way of calling him a girl. ~ Nora Roberts

My cheeks are hot when he stalks right up to me, eyes narrowed. Pinched between his bloody fingers is a piece of scrap metal laced with seilgflùr from the blunderbuss - a shot that would have killed any other faery.

"Really?" he says.

"You were traipsing around in a low-visibility field while enemy fae are afoot," I say defensively, hoping he can't tell I'm blushing. "What is wrong with you?"

Aithinne snickers and Kiaran casts her a sharp glance. "It's not funny."

His sister tries to hold back a laugh, but doesn't quite succeed. "I'm sorry," she says. "But you just . . . I've never seen you look like such a complete mess."

Kiaran studies her with a narrowed gaze. "And both of you look like you've gone three rounds with a roving band of feral cats. I'd say we're even."

"Even? Oh, please." Aithinne ticks off each finger. "Thus far the Falconer and I escaped through a forest of spiked trees, fought off the mara, fled from Lonnrach's soldiers, and defeated two mortair. You were shot by accident with some weapon composed of a wooden stick with a barrel on the end - "

"A blunderbuss," I correct helpfully. Kiaran gives me a pointed look that says, Whose side are you on?

" - so I'd say I win this round." She finishes with the sort of arrogant grin that makes it very clear that this must be an ongoing competition.

Sibling rivalry, it seems, is not just for humans.
If Kiaran's glare ~ Elizabeth May

As parents it is well to be aware of the tendency to equate energetic activity with contest. Our children's worth does not dependon their ability to trounce one another. And surely we can find ways of frolicking and being healthy and active together in some joyful, free way that is not an adversary relationship. ~ Polly Berrien Berends

Birth order is a crucial factor. Whereas oldest children
tend to identify with their parents and authority and to sustain the status quo, younger
children tend to rebel (cf. Averett, Argys, & Rees, 2006). Moreover, the repercussions of
sibling rivalry extend beyond individual development to society as a whole ~ Barbara Engler

One only has to watch aging siblings scrap over the worthless pots and pans and scuffed furniture of a deceased parent's estate- like toddlers over toys- to see how desperate is the need to wrest some last, pathetic, tangible measure of their parent's devotion. ~ Victoria Secunda

She ran a streak of foundation under each eye, highlighter down the bridge of her nose, and bronzer beneath each cheekbone - a layer of armor before battle. Because that's what these parties were to her, a war on all the heartbreaking boys in the San Francisco Bay Area. ~ Jessica Taylor

I don't remember any sibling rivalry growing up, because by the time I was really conscious, Tom was going away to college. My relationship with him, which is a very close one, really developed in more recent years. ~ David Hyde Pierce

Merry Christmas," said George. "Don't go downstairs for a bit."
"Why not?" said Ron.
"Mum's crying again," said Fred heavily. "Percy sent back his Christmas jumper." [I guess that's a sweater, though my jury is still out on it until I get a future confirmation.]
"Without a not," added George. "Hasn't asked how Dad is or visit him [in the hospital] or anything ... "
"We tried to comfort her," said Fred, moving around the bed to look at Harry's portrait. "Told her Percy's nothing but a humongous pile of rat droppings
"
"
didn't work," said George, helping himself to a Chocolate Frog. "So Lupin took over. Best let him cheer her up before we go down for breakfast, I reckon. ~ J.K. Rowling

Still, I could have been kinder." She frowned, her eyes wandering. "Sibling relationships can be complex. I wonder, sometimes, if my own actions had some bearing upon the paths my brothers chose. Could I have been a better sister to them? Perhaps, as a young ymbryne, I was too focused on myself. ~ Ransom Riggs

Siblings Without Rivalry and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. ~ Gretchen Rubin

After truly knowing Ryke, I can't fathom shutting the door on a sibling. It's a bind that's different than a friendship. It's one that hurts more if it breaks, but when it's whole, it means everything ~ Krista Ritchie

Three years ago, I was no one. I was living in a sleepy town of Caribou, Maine, and my parents were getting divorced. My little sister Ellie was my only sibling, and I only had one friend.

Then I woke up one morning, and little did I know, but everything just…changed. ~ Krista Ritchie

You're in a rather odd mood today."
I'm soaking wet, Eloise."
No need to snap at me about it, I didn't force you to walk across town in the rain."
It wasn't raining when I left,". There was something about a sibling that brought out the eight-year-old in a body.
I'm sure the sky was gray,"
Clearly, she had a bit of the eight-year-old in her as well. ~ Julia Quinn

He always believed he loved his daughter, but the fear of rabies obliged the Marquis to admit to himself that this was a lie for the sake of convenience. Bernarda, on the other hand, did not even ask herself the question, for she knew very well she did not love the girl and the girl did not love her, and both things seemed fitting. A good part of the hatred each of them felt for Sierva Maria was caused by the other's qualities in her. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Draco: Flipendo! ... Keep up, old man.
Harry: We're the same age, Draco.
Draco: I wear it better. ~ J.K. Rowling

Anais: 'I made a note to ask you why I am obsessed with a few persons only. Why are my devotions so concentrated on a few people? I do not spread out as Henry does.' Dr. Allendy: 'Yes, exactly, it is a bad sign. You do not really confide in many people, then they do not know you, and then you quickly surmise they do not understand and love you. On the few people you feel connected with, you pour a lavish devotion. This must cease. In love, too, one must relinquish to really love. You cannot admit rivalry. The more broadly and expansively you love, without exclusiveness, the more you reach the mystic whole, the larger sense of love, the less individualistic, the more universal love. ~ Anais Nin

There is nothing so necessary, but at the same time there is nothing more difficult (I know it by experience) for you young fellows, than to know how to behave yourselves prudently towards those whom you do not like. Your passions are warm, and your heads are light; you hate all those who oppose your views, either of ambition or love; and a rival, in either, is almost a synonymous term for any enemy. ~ Lord Chesterfield

My parents have not insisted that we go to college, but she wanted us to learn. Teacher, librarian, secretary, nurse. All my siblings were employed. But I wanted to be the boss, an independent contractor. ~ Bette Midler

The conditions of city life may be made healthy, so far as the physical constitution is concerned; but there is connected with the business of the city so much competition, so much rivalry, so much necessity for industry, that I think it is a perpetual, chronic, wholesale violation of natural law. There are ten men that can succeed in the country, where there is one that can succeed in the city. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

there is something still more appalling than the ingratitude of daughters who have cast off their old father and wish that he were dead, and that is a rivalry between two sisters. ~ Honore De Balzac

We can understand why one of the titles given to Jesus is that of 'prophet.' Jesus is the last and greatest of the prophets, the one who sums them up and goes further than all of them. He is the prophet of the last, but also of the best, chance. With him there takes place a shift that is both tiny and gigantic – a shift that follows on directly from the Old Testament but constitutes a decisive break as well. This is the complete elimination of the sacrificial for the first time – the end of divine violence and the explicit revelation of all that has gone before. It calls for a complete change of emphasis and a spiritual metamorphosis without precedent in the whole history of mankind. It also amounts to an absolute simplification of the relations between human beings, in so far as all the false differences between doubles are annulled – a simplification in the sense in which we speak of an algebraic simplification.
Throughout the texts of the Old Testament it was impossible to conclude the deconstruction of myths, rituals and law since the plenary revelation of the founding murder had not yet taken place. The divinity may be to some extent stripped of violence, but not completely so. That is why there is still an indeterminate and indistinct future, in which the resolution of the problem by human means alone – the face-to-face reconciliation that ought to result when people are alerted to the stupidity and uselessness of symmetrical violence – remains confused to a certai ~ Rene Girard

I hope that people will realize that the struggle to make a life better with a sibling is worth it. ~ Marie Brenner

She nodded, or rocked, or both. "It's a stable number, three. Fives and sevens are good, too, but three is the best. Things are always growing to three or shrinking to three. Best to start there. Two is a terrible number. Two is for rivalry and fighting and murder."
"Or marriage," Adam said, thinking.
"Same thing," Persephone replied. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Someone who loves you, will act as sibling rather than a lover. ~ Olivie Boyke

There's nothing like competing for your boyfriend's attention with an emotionally needy sibling to make you feel like the worst sort of evil psycho-bitch. ~ Lauren Willig

I will never make the mistake of loving you ever again."
"So you choose him?"
That's all this ever was. Jealousy. Rivalry. All so shadow could defeat the flame. ~ Victoria Aveyard

Penance is in my bones. So's a desire to confess, even when it isn't technically necessary. I think it stems from seeds of superstition left over from a childhood belief in an omniscient creator. I imagine this creator, this observer, as a sort of annoying sibling in the sky, forever calling me on my bullshit. When I lie or cheat, I actually feel like that annoying sibling in the sky calls down, "Bullshit, Suzie, BULLSHIT!" and that anyone nearby, if they're at all sensitive to the catcalls of the gods, can hear him. And so I behave accordingly, and try to make amends for what I have done. ~ Suzanne Morrison

Although previous studies had suggested that friendship
male and female
could be a powerful antidote to stress, more recent research indicates that broken promises, dashed expectations, and other side effects of friendship gone wrong can actually raise the level of stress in our lives, often to disastrous effect. ~ Susan Shapiro Barash

The mildest, drowsiest sister has been known to turn tiger if her sibling is in trouble. ~ Clara Luz Zuniga Ortega

The dialectic cannot stop short before the conceptsof health and sickness, nor indeed before their siblings reason and unreason. ~ Theodor Adorno

If a child has an older sibling involved in an addiction, there is a 90 percent chance that he or she will get involved too. ~ Virgil Miller Newton

In love there are no friends everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open. ~ Victor Hugo

3Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ~ Anonymous

We sometimes think, and even like to think, that the two greatest exertions that have influenced mankind, religion and science, have always been historical enemies, intriguing us in opposite directions. But this effort at special identity is loudly false. It is not religion but the church and science that were hostile to each other. And it was rivalry, not contravention. Both were religious. They were two giants fuming at each other over the same ground. Both proclaimed to be the only way to divine revelation. ~ Julian Jaynes

Certain portions of the earth, escaping utter destruction, become the seedbeds for replenishing the human race, and so it happens that on a world that is not young there are young populations having no culture, whose traditions were swept away in a debacle; they wander over the earth and gradually put aside the roughness of a nomadic existence and by natural inclunation submit to communities and associations; their mode of living is at first simple, knowking no guile and strange to cunning, called in its early stage the Golden Age. [16] The more these populations progress in civilization and employment of the arts, the more easily does the spirit of rivalry creep in, at first commendable but imperceptibly changing to envy; this, then, is responsible for all the tribulations that the race suffers in subsequent ages. So much for the vicissitudes that civilizations experience, of perishing and arising again, as the world goes on unchanged.
[Chapter X - 15,16] ~ Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius

Service rivalry leads to service pride, which is good for building morale and esprit. ~ Anthony Zinni

Anyone who has raised more than one child knows full well that kids turn out the way they turn out - astonishingly, for the most part, and usually quite unlike their siblings, even their twins, raised under the same flawed rooftree. Little we have done or said, or left undone and unsaid, seems to have made much mark. It's hubris to suppose ourselves so influential; a casual remark on the playground is as likely to change their lives as any dedicated campaign of ours. They come with much of their own software already in place, waiting, and none of the keys we press will override it. ~ Barbara Holland

We share a bond. We do everything together. We have a piece of strong, invisible thread connecting us. It's indestructible – it can never be broken. The thread is the key item that links us together. We understand each other. ~ Erica Sehyun Song

I think people that have a brother or sister don't realize how lucky they are. Sure, they fight a lot, but to know that there's always somebody there, somebody that's family. ~ Trey Parker

I was in the fifth grade the first time I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came across a perpetual calendar in the back of the phone book, where you could look up any date in the future, and by using this little grid, determine what the day of the week would be. So we located our birthdays in the following year, mine in May and hers in September. I got Wednesday, a school night. She got a Friday. A small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she didn't need braces. Her moonwalk was superior, as were her cart-wheels and her front handsprings (I couldn't handspring at all). She had a better sticker collection. More Michael Jackson pins. Forenze sweaters in turquoise, red, and peach (my mother allowed me none- said they were too trendy and expensive). And a pair of fifty-dollar Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles (ditto). Darcy had double-pierced ears and a sibling- even if it was just a brother, it was better than being an only child as I was.

But at least I was a few months older and she would never quite catch up. That's when I decided to check out my thirtieth birthday- in a year so far away that it sounded like science fiction. It fell on a Sunday, which meant that my dashing husband and I would secure a responsible baby-sitter for our two (possibly three) children on that Saturday evening, dine at a fancy French restaurant with cloth napkins, and stay out ~ Emily Giffin

My favorite of all was still the place on Vermont, the French cafe, La Lyonnaise, that had given me the best onion soup on that night with George and my father. The two owners hailed from France, from Lyon, before the city had boomed into a culinary sibling of Paris. Inside, it had only a few tables, and the waiters served everything out of order, and it had a B rating in the window, and they usually sat me right by the swinging kitchen door, but I didn't care about any of it.
There, I ordered chicken Dijon, or beef Bourguignon, or a simple green salad, or a pate sandwich, and when it came to the table, I melted into whatever arrived. I lavished in a forkful of spinach gratin on the side, at how delighted the chef had clearly been over the balance of spinach and cheese, like she was conducting a meeting of spinach and cheese, like a matchmaker who knew they would shortly fall in love. Sure, there were small distractions and preoccupations in it all, but I could find the food in there, the food was the center, and the person making the food was so connected with the food that I could really, for once, enjoy it. ~ Aimee Bender

There was a rivalry - and some pie-throwing. But that was probably because Gawker and Radar had more in common than they wanted to admit. Each was the other's future. Radar served up the exclusives I always envied. Gawker was actually comfortable on the web, in the medium Radar should have made its own. ~ Nick Denton

In my professional work I am struck by how often sibling relationships fall apart around the life-cycle stage of caring for elderly parents, and dealing with a parents death and it's aftermath. Failed apologies have the most serious consequences at stressful points in the life-cycle, and loss is the most challenging adaptational task that family members have to come to terms with. ~ Harriet Lerner

Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry? ~ Woodrow Wilson

Sibling relationships are complicated. All family relationships are. Look at Hamlet. ~ Maurice Saatchi

I was the youngest of the six kids, and to make my older siblings laugh, that was very important. I did a great impression of our dad that made them all laugh, so that gave me a lot of power within the family. ~ Jim Gaffigan

I think the fact that father is running now as opposed to in 2012 where he didn't that he's had enough faith in myself and my siblings to be able to run the company.We've got tens of thousands of people that are under his direct employ. Those people, he wouldn't leave a company and leave those people and their lives and everything they've put into it at risk if he didn't think there was competent leadership to take over after him. ~ Sean Hannity