Siblings Brother Quotes

What strange creatures brothers are!

He’s my brother, my blood. He annoys the hell out of me most of the time, but when it comes right down to it I want to see him graduate from college and have little annoying mini-Alexes and mini-Brittanys running around in the future

Not only had my brother disappeared, but--and bear with me here--a part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from them on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared.

Ethan was loyal and funny and protective. When we were little, he was the brother most likely to make me cry—and mostly likely to wipe away my tears.

I don't feel the need to explain my actions to her. I don't clarify, I don't doubt, I don't worry. I don't tell her everything, not anymore, but I tell her more than anyone else, by far. I tell her as much as I can.

It's a commonly expressed and rather nice, romantic notion that we are all "sisters" and "brothers." Let's be real. Fact is, we might be better served to accept that we are all siblings. Siblings fight, pull each other's hair, steal stuff, and accuse each other indiscriminately. But siblings also know the undeniable fact that they are the same blood, share the same origins, and are family. Even when they hate each other. And that tends to put all things in perspective.

Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.

Got any brothers or sisters?” “No.” “Not a real chatty gal, are ya?” “Exactly how am I supposed to expand on not having siblings? Should I cry?” He smiled as he held up a bottle, “Wine?

What brothers say to tease their sisters has nothing to do with what they really think of them.

If you want to see something funny, it's a tough hood sticking his tongue out at his big brother.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

True siblings are bound together by far more essential things than blood, while more times than many blood isn't thicker than water.

People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel -- before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by puffy tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.

It's been my experience that only children never learn when to keep their fucking traps shut. An older brother would have beat that out of you.

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.

Clary curled up on the ground seeing in front of her not the shell of a destroyed town but the eyes of the brother and the sister that she would never have.

... I called my brother, Hank, and told him I was feeling frightened. Hank is the levelheaded one, the sane one, the calm one. He always has been. We have never let the fact of my being older get in the way of Hank being the wise older brother.

You can't fight hatred with hatred and expect anyone to listen to you. You can only try to lessen it with humor, wit, truth and commonsense. If that doesn't work run like hell, while they throw rocks at you.

Alec was very still for a moment, barely breathing. Then, to Jace's surprise, he reached out and ruffled Jace's hair, the way an older brother might ruffle his younger sibling's hair. His smile was cautious, but it was full of real affection. "Thanks for seeing me," he said, and walked off down the tunnel.

You bet on whether or not I kissed your wife?" Ali was aghast. "What is wrong with the two of you?" When his brother and sister only cackled harder, he drew up. "I hate you. "I hate you both.

Raimund, we must promise each other that if one of us leaves Mora it must be both. We must leave together.” She was not sure what had made her ask for this promise, but she was growing more aware of her femininity. She loved Raimund as a brother, but something told her that her feelings for him were more than those of a sibling. Raimund smiled and squeezed her hand. “Of course Aleana, I am after all your brother.

Why would I stop simply because I know it annoys you?

Hysterical laughter. Why did he keep hearing hysterical laughter? Fearghus opened one eye to stare at his two siblings. The were practically falling over each other they were laughing so hard. They woke him up from a sound sleep for this? "What?" His current mood wouldn't allow for this. And definitely wouldn't allow for him. Gwenvael choked out an answer. "She braided your hair, brother." "Like a horse's mane," his sister added.

Thus did my siblings and I learn one of the hard lessons of life: the best way to strip the allure and dreaminess from a lifelong dream is, very often, simply to have it come true.

I swear, Oliver, when did you become such a stick-in-the-mud?” “I’ve always been a stick-in-the-mud.” Her brother cast her a thin smile. “I just hid it beneath all the debauchery.” She sniffed. “I wish you’d hide it again. It’s quite annoying.

Dr. Webb says that losing a sibling is oftentimes much harder for a person than losing any other member of the family. "A sibling represents a person's past, present, and future," he says. "Spouses have each other, and even when one eventually dies, they have memories of a time when they existed before that other person and can more readily imagine a life without them. Likewise, parents may have other children to be concerned with--a future to protect for them. To lose a sibling is to lose the one person with whom one shares a lifelong bond that is meant to continue on into the future.

If you were a truly dedicated brother Thomas, you would be at Babara's side,” Anna said. “I would hope that if I collapsed, Christopher would weep inconsolably and be incapable of consuming meat pies.

Jill had three basic statements about life, 1. It is your life, usually with some added social commentary. 2. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things. 3. No one ever said that life was fair.

I would tell people some years later that I was raised an only child and so was my brother.

Because I was fifteen and generally an idiot, I thought that the feeling of home I was experiencing had to do with the car and where it was parked, instead of attributing it wholly and gratefully to my sister.

What can I tell you about the alchemy of twins? Twins are two bodies that dance to each other’s joy. Two minds that drown in each other’s despair. Two spirits that fly with each other’s love. Twins are two separate beings conjoined at the heart!

Her hands flew to her mouth. 'Are we even twins?' Josh rested his hand on her shoulder and brought his forehead to rest against hers, strands of their blond hair mingling. 'I will always be your brother, Sophie. I will always look after you.

She waited until Jeremy's footsteps receded. "I didn't know you had a brother." "Now you do." He continued writing. "Do you have any other siblings?" "No." "Parents?" "I didn't crawl out of Hell, if that's what you are asking.

Maybe we would grow apart, he would develop a personality that I would know nothing about, we would start our families, have children of our own, and there would come a point when in thinking about 'family' we would think of the ones we made, not the ones we were from.

Do you know how horrid it feels to watch my brother get tossed out of the best boarding school of England, then get to travel the Continent as a reward, while I’m stuck behind, not permitted to study the same things or read the same books or even visit the same places while we’re abroad, just because I had the bad luck to be born a girl?

I have no brothers or sisters, so I get all my sibling love. But since I can't take what's already mine, I end up giving it all to my cat.

What did God really know about brothers (or for that matter sisters)? He was after all an only child and before it all an equally lonely father.

My sisters treated me like a living doll for years, carrying me around so much that I didn’t bother learning to walk until I was almost two.

I liked having some time to myself. Our family was such a close one, you could get smothered. Of course, we didn't always agree with one another. Sometimes I quarreled with my brother and sisters, but I couldn't remember hating anyone for more than five minutes.

My youngest brother killed a lynx yesterday,” Rose said. “Apparently it came into his territory and left some spray marks. He skinned it, smeared himself in its blood, and put its pelt on his shoulders like a cape. And that’s how he came dressed for breakfast.” Cerise drank some beer. “My sister kills small animals and hangs their corpses on a tree, because she thinks she is a monster and she’s convinced we’ll eventually banish her from the house. They’re her rations. Just in case.” Rose blinked. “I see. I think we’re going to get along just fine, don’t you?” “I think so, yes.

Do you have any other siblings?" I asked. "Yeah," he answered. "What? A sister? Brother? Two? Twelve?" I pressed. "Another brother," he answered. Good God. There were three Italian, Cuban, Puerto Rican male Delgados roaming the earth. How did I not know this? As a woman, I should have instinctually felt their presence.

And, actually, I was feeling pretty good at the time. My brothers were like individual rays of sunshine that had come crashing into my room to drive out the fragments of Despair. For a few minutes, everything was golden. And everything was okay.

who knows you better than your own brother?

The only reason that some people aren’t ashamed of their parents and/or siblings is because they know that we know that they did not choose them.

Max cuffed his brother good-naturedly on the ear as River slid in past him and bent to kiss Sophia on the cheek. “Hello, are you sure you’re with the right brother?” Sophia had never had a younger sibling. But this man with his laughing eyes and bright smile... “Are you making me an offer?

But how can I learn to live in a world that doesn’t include my brother? All my life, I’ve always been my brother’s sister; it’s part of my identity, part of who I am. My brother is part of my past; we share a common history. And we had plans for the future.

I don’t think you can even begin to understand what your words mean to me. Even if they were addressed to Forest in the beginning. You were a sister writing to her missing older brother. And I felt that pain as a brother who had lost the only sibling he ever had.

Coming back last time to the house she grew up in, Isabel had been reminded of the darkness that had descended with her brothers' deaths, how loss had leaked all over her mother's life like a stain. As a fourteen-year-old, Isabel had searched the dictionary. She knew that if a wife lost a husband, there was a whole new word to describe who she was: she was now a widow. A husband became a widower. But if a parent loss a child, there was no special label for their grief. They were still just a mother or a father, even if they no longer had a son or daughter. That seemed odd. As to her own status, she wondered whether she was still technically a sister, now that her adored brothers had died.

where Mom’s eyes were filled with concern and confusion, Scott looked at George as if his sibling made sense to him for the first time. George had never been gladder to have an older brother.

That's the function of big brothers... to help their little sisters when their worlds are collapsing.

I understand that you are an accomplished swords-man,” she finally said. He eyed her curiously. Where was she going with this? “I like to fence, yes,” he replied. “I have always wanted to learn.” “Good God,” Gregory grunted. “I would be quite good at it,” she protested. “I’m sure you would,” her brother replied, “which is why you should never be allowed within thirty feet of a sword.” He turned to Gareth. “She’s quite diabolical.” “Yes, I’d noticed,” Gareth murmured, deciding that maybe there might be a bit more to Hyacinth’s brother than he had thought. Gregory shrugged, reaching for a piece of shortbread. “It’s probably why we can’t seem to get her married off.” “Gregory!” This came from Hyacinth, but that was only because Lady Bridgerton had excused herself and followed one of the footmen into the hall. “It’s a compliment!” Gregory protested. “Haven’t you waited your entire life for me to agree that you’re smarter than any of the poor fools who have attempted to court you?” “You might find it difficult to believe,” Hyacinth shot back, “but I haven’t been going to bed each night thinking to myself—Oh, I do wish my brother would offer me something that passes for a compliment in his twisted mind.

She glances at her brother. “And I suppose your face is just stuck that way?” Kiaran pushes to his feet and I do the same. “What you see is the incessant, grave look of someone in possession of a sibling.

But being a brother or a sister (if you are lucky enough) is the role of a lifetime.

I looked at my brothers, and Linnie, and Rodney, and felt something within me that had been clenched tight start to loosen a little. So maybe I wasn't just the youngest, the one who didn't get told things. I was also the one who came to help, who tried to make things work, who they called when they were in trouble.

I want to hold his hand, but I know he will shake it free. His eyes are too full of guilt to really see me, to see his reflection in my eyes, the reflection of my hero, the brother who tried always to protect me the best he could. He will never think that he did enough, and he will never understand that I do not think he should have done more.

[S]isters could do a great deal for their brothers, if they would.

Aliena's brother, Richard, sometimes reminded her of her father, with a look or a gesture, and that was when she felt a surge of affection.

I thought we might get to know each other better." "Why?" "Because we´re brothers." "So were Cain and Abel.

Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison. "Yes, we're all alike," I said. "We cover for you, we lie for you, we take the heat for you. We clean up your messes and mollify our parents for you. We never fail to come across with undying adoration, whether or not you deserve it, and we can't take our lives as seriously as yours. We snuffle up the crumbs from your table on the rare occasions you notice we're alive.

How lucky am I that I got a best friend and a brother all at once? There are things no one else will understand besides us. Things we experienced, people we lost, and the entire time, our goal was to be here, in this league, together. Well, we did it, little brother. You and me, and you were right. It feels good when you end it like this.

Oliver has stated many times his dislike of hearing advice from his younger sister, so it is his own fault if he has not got sense enough to see which way the wind is blowing.

Truth or lie... he had always chosen the lie, to spare his little brother any unpleasant truth.

No parent should lose a son or daughter, no teacher should lose a student, no sibling should lose a brother or sister, and no student should lose a best friend or a teacher.

If you’re not your mother’s only child, you know there’s not nobody in the world that can understand the dirt you fought to grow from like your brother.

Grandmother pointed out my brother Perry, my sister Sarah, and my sister Eliza, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning.

The boy gestured with his chin at Dimity. “She was shot.” He sounded remarkably unconcerned for a brother with any degree of affection for his sibling.“Good lord!” Sophronia climbed in to see to her new friend’s health. The bullet had grazed Dimity’s shoulder. It had ripped her dress and left a partly burned gash behind, but didn’t look all that bad. Sophronia checked to make certain Dimity had no other injuries. Then she sat back on her heels.“Is that all? I’ve had worse scrapes from drinking tea. Why has she come over all crumpled?”Pillover rolled his eyes. “Faints at the sight of blood, our Dimity. Always has. Weak nerves,father says. It doesn’t even have to be her blood.

At morn we buried Melanippus; as the sun set the maiden Basilo died by her own hand, as she could not endure to lay her brother on the pyre and live; and the house beheld a two-fold woe, and all Cyrene bowed her head, to see the home of happy children made desolate.

I haven’t been able to pray with the same unquestioned simplicity of hope since Dustin passed. My childhood ended the day my brother died. The naive hope that a miracle would save him, that he would one day walk, that a disease was a blessing in my family – that hope died with him.

Whether they're superior or inferior, older brothers are role models for their younger brothers. If the older brother takes the wrong path, the younger brothers can avoid it. And if I take the right path, my little brothers can follow behind.

I don't know what's wrong with me." I said with a sniffle. "My brother and sisters don't seem to carry this same pain, and we were all there at the same time, in the same house." Al said, "If I were to interview four siblings about their childhoods, they would each describe a completely different family." Your story, then, is yours and no one else's. Each sunset is different, depending on where you stand.

And her brother John set her on her horse.'Now you are high and I am low,Give me a kiss before ye go.’She leaned down to give him a kiss,He gave her a deep wound and did not miss.And with a knife as sharp as a dart,Her brother stabbed her to the heart. 

I tried to show him things, but he didn't seem to study what I showed him. Usually, he just put whatever I handed him in his mouth. He would try to eat anything. I fed him Tabasco sauce and he yelled. Having a little brother helped me learn to relate to other people. Being a little brother, Snort learned to watch what he put in his mouth.

NEWT shuffles over awkwardly to the bereft THESEUS. NEWT hesitates, struggling to find words of comfort. Then for the first time in his life, he puts his arms around his brother. They hug. NEWT: I've chosen my side.

Could that be why brother and sister slept together in perfect impunity, a Romeo and Juliet starcrossed not because they belonged to two families but to a single one?

It is a dreadful chore, being the eldest." -Alastair Carstairs

That is, the full impact of our brother's or sister's death begins to seep into our consciousness at precisely the same time when others might expect us to be feeling better.

He keeps getting older while I'm not paying attention.

In fairy tales, the heroes are punished when they run away from a task. The heroes, not their younger brothers...

One final time I told myself I wasn't abducting my little brother.

I was his big brother, Hanna. It was on me to protect him.

Do you think you can leave here alive after trying to hurt my little brother?

Later the brothers had quarrelled, one of those family quarrels we all know with deeply entangled roots, impossible to cure because neither side speaks out clearly, each having much to hide.

The thing to know about my brother was that even though he was fifteen, he looked to be about the same age as me. Only, I'm not sure if that was because he looked older or I looked younger. I like to think it was a healthy mixture of both.

To lose a sibling is to lose the one person with whom one shares a lifelong bond that is meant to continue on into the future.” I understood this to mean that as a seventeen-year-old whose brother was most likely dead, I was acting t like a complete ass-hat for a good reason. Not only had my brother disappeared, but–and bear with me here–a part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from then on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared.

Everything casts two shadows. The suns had determined this at the dawn of creation. Brothers, they were, until the younger sun showed his true face to the tribe. It was a sin. The elder sun attempted to kill his brother, as was only proper. But he failed. Burning, bleeding, the younger sun pursued his sibling across the sky. The wily old star fled for the hills and safety, but it was his fate never to rest again. For the younger brother had only exposed his face. The elder had exposed his failure.

The answer to the question ‘How many children do you have?’ and the one to the question ‘How many children are you raising?’ are not identical in all cases: some men are not taking care of their own children, some are knowingly or unknowingly raising other men’s children, and some do not even know that they each have a child, another child, or other children.

If my brothers and sisters in Christ continue to tell me something about myself that I do not see as true and accurate, I must come to a place where I trust the body, looking at me objectively, more than I trust myself, looking at me subjectively. This is especially true when we are dealing with people who know and love us, those who live and serve in close proximity. Praise God for loving Christian spouses, siblings, and even children in whom both the Spirit of God and a willingness to be lovingly honest abide.

I have three younger siblings, and used to tell them an awful lot of lies when they were growing up. The best thing about being a writer is that now I can say that my lies were all in the name of literary creativity. Unfortunately, my brothers and sister don’t believe me.

I knew I had to make a stand, somehow. Part of that would be saying no to the world’s desire for me to talk about my siblings, anywhere. Even in the pages of my own book. It is up to my brothers and sisters if they wish to share their story one day. But I’d be no better than Ruby if I detailed their experiences without their consent. They deserve to be given back the choice that had been stolen from them for so long. I don’t want to be anything like her, I thought. I won’t exploit them the way she did.

Esther wanted to make her brother understand that he was the sun. That he was bright and burning and brilliant, and without his warmth, without his gravity to orient herself around, she would be nothing. She wished they had that psychic twin thing, that she could push images into his head and make him see. Make him see that he was everything.

Five years behind me, but somehow with his shit together.

Night after night, my mom had us name three nice things our siblings had done for us, and each night we were somehow able to come up with something. And

God, I wish he and I had been genuinely close as opposed to the "Don't-they-look-nice-together-in-the-airbrushed-family-portrait close.

There are different levels of trust, and I need to get back to the point where he trusts me so much he no longer has to say it aloud.

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

The fact that you have just buried your parent or parents and/or sibling or siblings does not make you less likely to die today.

The Soviet Union never ended. It reformed itself as the Woke West, a totalitarian liberal, rather than communist, nightmare. Big Brother became Non-Binary Elder Sibling.

You’re a sulker, aren’t you?” A sulker? Akira had never had a sibling, but she recognized the type. He was a button-pusher. “And you’re a younger brother, aren’t you?

Since parents are the role model, you’ll hear your child speak to his sister or brother using your words and tone of voice. Children

Despite all the pain he caused, I didn't know how to breathe without my brother in this world.

I'm going to bed tonight grateful for warmth, an advantage so expected it barely registers. May my privileges continue to drive me downward to my brothers and sisters without. Greater yet, I'm tired of calling the suffering "brothers and sisters" when I'd never allow my biological siblings to suffer likewise. That's just hypocrisy veiled in altruism. I won't defile my blessings by imagining that I deserve them. Until every human receives the dignity I casually enjoy, I pray my heart aches with tension and my belly rumbles for injustice.

The love between a brother and sister just over a year apart in age held fast. It wasn’t twinship, and it wasn’t romance, but it was more like a passionate loyalty to a dying brand.

I don’t know. She didn’t exactly say she didn’t want me. Shit. You’re making me sound like an ass.” “Aww. You’re not an ass. You’re just a confused man. That’s why God gave you a sister.

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 past midnight, so technically we would be celebrating on my actual birthday. I would have just won a big case- somehow proven that an innocent man didn't do it. And my husband would toast me: "To Rachel, my beautiful wife, the mother of my chidren and the finest lawyer in Indy." I shared my fantasy with Darcy as we discovered that her thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday. Bummer for her. I watched her purse her lips as she processed this information. "You know, Rachel, who cares what day of the week we turn thirty?" she said, shrugging a smooth, olive shoulder. "We'll be old by then. Birthdays don't matter when you get that old." I thought of my parents, who were in their thirties, and their lackluster approach to their own birthdays. My dad had just given my mom a toaster for her birthday because ours broke the week before. The new one toasted four slices at a time instead of just two. It wasn't much of a gift. But my mom had seemed pleased enough with her new appliance; nowhere did I detect the disappointment that I felt when my Christmas stash didn't quite meet expectations. So Darcy was probably right. Fun stuff like birthdays wouldn't matter as much by the time we reached thirty. The next time I really thought about being thirty was our senior year in high school, when Darcy and I started watching ths show Thirty Something together. It wasn't our favorite- we preferred cheerful sit-coms like Who's the Boss? and Growing Pains- but we watched it anyway. My big problem with Thirty Something was the whiny characters and their depressing issues that they seemed to bring upon themselves. I remember thinking that they should grow up, suck it up. Stop pondering the meaning of life and start making grocery lists. That was back when I thought my teenage years were dragging and my twenties would surealy last forever. Then I reached my twenties. And the early twenties did seem to last forever. When I heard acquaintances a few years older lament the end of their youth, I felt smug, not yet in the danger zone myself. I had plenty of time..

It's like being raised by wolves -- you don't realize you're not one yourself until someone points it out to you. Sometimes it makes me so mad that not everyone treats me just like another wolf.

Your relationship with your brother will be, in many ways, the most complex and bewildering of all the interpersonal connections you will form. An older brother is both authority and peer, friend and bitter enemy, partner and rival, and will play these contradictory roles to varying degrees throughout your life. At this point the rivalry is most prominent, owing to the difference in age and the resentment your brother feels toward you monopolizing your mother's attention. Try to remember, in the face of the poor treatment you receive at his hands, that more than a pure desire to cause you harm or pain, this is an effort on his part to win back some of that attention, even if it's only through being scolded and punished.

The light in that room was a glow; I seem to remember the color green, or perhaps flowers. A pale green sheet covered his inert body but not his head, which lay (eyes closed, mouth set in a tense and terrible grimace) unmoving. Gianluca. Barely able to see, barely able to stand - my knees kept buckling – and breathing so quietly I thought that I, too, might die; that out of shock, I would just drift away, the shell of my body cracking open. No longer anchored by my brother’s love, I would be reabsorbed by sky. Gianluca. If there was never another sound in the world, I would understand – yes, that would be appropriate, it would be fitting. This was the antithesis of music, the antithesis of noise. My brother’s death seemed to demand silence of all the world. Gianluca.

After a minute I leaned back, elbows on the table, and looked up for the twinkle of the first star in the evening sky. When we were little, it was a ritual Finn and I did on the front porch. He'd make his wish silently, and I would too, but I never could keep a secret; and I'd tell him what I wished every time. He'd always tell me it wouldn't come true, but I didn't believe him. I'd had plenty of them come true, from a new box of crayons showing up out of nowhere to a bag of candy left on my bed. It had been a while, though, and the only thing I'd wish for now was impossible. I found the first star in a patch of burnt-orange sky, above the crinkly purple mountains in the distance, and then I wished my brother back anyway.

She looked up at him, wondering when it was that this man, her brother, had become so wise. If he'd yelled one more word, spent one more minute speaking to her in that mocking voice, she would have broke. She would have broke, or she would have hardened, but either way, something between them would have been ruined. But here he was, Anthony of all people, who was arrogant and proud and every inch the arch nobleman he'd been born to be, kneeling at her side, placing his hand on hers, and speaking with a kindness that nearly broke her heart.

I turn to look into my brother's eyes. For a long moment, all we can do is take in each other's faces. "Look at you, little sister, " Darin finally whispers. His smile is the sun rising after the longest, darkest night. "Look at you.

Do we have a hand mirror?' I asked from the kitchen doorway. 'Never use one,' said Lester, examining the date on a carton of sour cream. 'Naturally, you're a male. What you see is what you've got,' I said resentfully. 'Huh?' said Lester.

There were times when she had an inkling of a situation not being fair, but she was accustomed to rationalizing things by telling herself that she was being a generous older sibling and that she shared with her sister because they were both girls. Jiyoung’s mother would praise the girls for taking good care of their brother and not competing for her love. Jiyoung thought it must be the big age gap. The more their mother praised, the more impossible it became for Jiyoung to complain.

I used to pray you know, pray to God that He would somehow stop it. All the nights of listening to my mother scream and things breaking. Of holding my brother and sister and listening to them cry and begging me to stop it.' My voice is slow and steady like a freight train at night. 'I was too young, and we were always told that they'd put us in foster homes where people would rape us if we ever said anything. So we explained away the bruises and my mom wore big sunglasses whenever she left the house. And we invented car accidents if the bruising was too bad to cover with make-up.

Do you know how horrid it feels to watch my brother get tossed out of the best boarding school in England, then get to travel the Continent as a reward, while I’m stuck behind, not permitted to study the same things or read the same books or even visit the same places while we’re abroad, just because I had the bad luck to be born a girl?

I remember how I would eye with envy all the kids in our neighborhood, in my school, who had a little brother or sister. How bewildered I was by the way some of them treated each other, oblivious to their own good luck. They acted like wild dogs. Pinching, hitting, pushing, betraying one another any way they could think of. Laughing about it too. They wouldn’t speak to one another. I didn’t understand. Me, I spent most of my early years craving a sibling. What I really wished I had was a twin, someone who’d cried next to me in the crib, slept beside me, fed from Mother’s breast with me. Someone to love helplessly and totally, and in whose face I could always find myself.

Brother. If I call you sister, you call me brother, see, because –

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.

Siblings. Always exaggerating, always teasing. Can’t live without them, can’t put them up for sale on eBay.

Ryke would endure hell for eternity if it meant that I could go to heaven. Once upon a time, I think I would’ve let him. Not anymore.

Did every step feel like the running leap a bird takes before flight?

The eldest brother has to be dignified. He has to be the role model. If the eldest brother goes the wrong way, his siblings will go that way, too.

Scott looked at George as if his sibling made sense to him for the first time. George had never been gladder to have an older brother.

I always thought my intellect would keep me alive, but now I shall be killed by my own baby brother with a rock. The ultimate sibling rivalry.

Our friends are siblings we discover, while our siblings are friends gifted to us by fate.

'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.'

As the writer Jeffrey Kluger puts it in The Sibling Effect, ‘From the time they are born, our brothers and sisters are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales . . . Our spouses arrive comparatively late in our lives; our parents eventually leave us. Our siblings may be the only people we’ll ever know who truly qualify as partners for life.

Beginning to feel that her brother was being rather too harsh on Lillian Bowman, Livia frowned. “She’s a very pretty girl, Marcus.” “A pretty facade isn’t enough to make up for the flaws in her character.” “Which are?” Marcus made a faint scoffing sound, as if Miss Bowman’s faults were too obvious to require enumeration. “She’s manipulative.” “So are you, dear,” Livia murmured. He ignored that. “She’s domineering.” “As are you.” “She’s arrogant.” “Also you,” Livia said brightly. Marcus glowered at her. “I thought we were discussing Miss Bowman’s faults, not mine.” “But you seem to have so much in common,” Livia protested, rather too innocently.

Just so you know, I had already decided I was adopting you and taking you home to meet the rest of the family. I really, really hope you wanted siblings, because you now have two sisters, a brother, a sister-in-law, a brother-in-law, and assorted cousins, aunts, uncles, and other such familial detritus.” James looked back to me, blinking in slow bewilderment. “Ah,” he said finally. “I suppose I’ll have a busy Christmas.

This is exactly what I meant by unfair, Abe. If I woulda brought a guy home and announced, ‘He’s staying with me in my room,’ both you and Hank would’ve trussed him up and dragged him off Lawson land.” “Not the same thing, Celia.” Her gray eyes narrowed. “Why? Because you both have dicks? Or because you both are dicks?

Nature gave you brothers and sisters and you have no right to choose who should become your relative. But the good news is that you have the right to choose your friends. You determine who to be free with and who to fire out.

I made it three days before the text messages started one afternoon while I was trying to finish warming up before our afternoon session. I had gotten to the LC later than usual and had gone straight to the training room, praising Jesus that I’d decided to change my clothes before leaving the diner once I’d seen what time it was and had remembered lunchtime traffic was a real thing. I was in the middle of stretching my hips when my phone beeped from where I’d left it on top of my bag. I took it out and snickered immediately at the message after taking my time with it. Jojo: WHAT THE FUCK JASMINE I didn’t need to ask what my brother was what-the-fucking over. It had only been a matter of time. It was really hard to keep a secret in my family, and the only reason why my mom and Ben—who was the only person other than her who knew—had kept their mouths closed was because they had both agreed it would be more fun to piss off my siblings by not saying anything and letting them find out the hard way I was going to be competing again. Life was all about the little things. So, I’d slipped my phone back into my bag and kept stretching, not bothering to respond because it would just make him more mad. Twenty minutes later, while I was still busy stretching, I pulled my phone out and wasn’t surprised more messages appeared. Jojo: WHY WOULD YOU NOT TELL ME Jojo: HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME Jojo: DID THE REST OF YOU KEEP THIS FROM ME Tali: What happened? What did she not tell you? Tali: OH MY GOD, Jasmine, did you get knocked up? Tali: I swear, if you got knocked up, I’m going to beat the hell out of you. We talked about contraception when you hit puberty. Sebastian: Jasmine’s pregnant? Rubes: She’s not pregnant. Rubes: What happened, Jojo? Jojo: MOM DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS Tali: Would you just tell us what you’re talking about? Jojo: JASMINE IS SKATING WITH IVAN LUKOV Jojo: And I found out by going on Picturegram. Someone at the rink posted a picture of them in one of the training rooms. They were doing lifts. Jojo: JASMINE I SWEAR TO GOD YOU BETTER EXPLAIN EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW Tali: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? IS THIS TRUE? Tali: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Jojo: I’m going on Lukov’s website right now to confirm this Rubes: I just called Mom but she isn’t answering the phone Tali: She knew about this. WHO ELSE KNEW? Sebastian: I didn’t. And quit texting Jas’s name over and over again. It’s annoying. She’s skating again. Good job, Jas. Happy for you. Jojo: ^^ You’re such a vibe kill Sebastian: No, I’m just not flipping my shit because she got a new partner. Jojo: SHE DIDN’T TELL US FIRST THO. What is the point of being related if we didn’t get the scoop before everybody else? Jojo: I FOUND OUT ON PICTUREGRAM Sebastian: She doesn’t like you. I wouldn’t tell you either. Tali: I can’t find anything about it online. Jojo: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Jojo: JASMINE Tali: JASMINE Tali: Tell us everything or I’m coming over to Mom’s today. Sebastian: You’re annoying. Muting this until I get out of work. Jojo: Party pooper Tali: Party pooper Jojo: Jinx Tali: Jinx Sebastian: Annoying ... I typed out a reply, because knowing them, if I didn’t, the next time I looked at my phone, I’d have an endless column of JASMINE on there until they heard from me. That didn’t mean my response had to be what they wanted. Me: Who is Ivan Lukov?

How rarely these few years, as work keeps up aloof, Or fares, or one thing or another, How we had days to spend under our parents' roof; Myself, my sister, and my brother. All five of us will die; to reckon from the past This flesh and blood is unforgiving. What's hard is that just one of us will be the last To bear it all and go on living.

Is it any wonder, given the volatility of sibling love, that we might feel anger at a brother or a sister for dying? How dare they die and leave us! We feel angry, but there is no recourse, so we usually end up feeling guilty. We

I had the pleasure of dining with your brother.” “Gregory? Really? You’d classify it as a pleasure?” But he was grinning as he said it, and Honoria could instantly picture what life must be like in the Bridgerton household: a great deal of teasing and a great deal of love. “He was most gracious to me,” she said with a smile. “Shall I tell you a secret?” Mr. Bridgerton murmured, and Honoria decided that in his case, it was right and proper to listen to gossip—he was an incredible flirt. “Must I keep the secret?” she asked, leaning forward ever-soslightly. “Definitely not.” She gave him a sunny smile. “Then yes, please.” Mr. Bridgerton leaned in, just about as far as she had done. “He has been known to catapult peas across the supper table.” Honoria gave him a very somber nod. “Has he done this recently?” “Not too recently, no.” She pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. It was lovely to witness this type of sibling teasing. There used to be so much of it in her home, although most of the time she’d been but a witness. She was so much younger than the rest of her siblings; in all honesty, most of the time they’d probably just forgotten to tease her. “I have but one question, Mr. Bridgerton.” He cocked his head. “How was this catapult constructed?” He grinned. “Simple spoon, Lady Honoria. But in Gregory’s devious hands, there was nothing simple about it.

But the future wasn’t something I thought much about back then. Like every other self-absorbed twelve-year old, I took it for granted that my brother would always be there; part best friend, part worst enemy. Mine to love and abuse.

My sister is there with, probably, the most dangerous people on this city! You have a little sister?” “No.” “Then you don’t have any right to tell me what I suposse to sacrifice if it’s for my sister’s sake!” “Owen...” “She’s the only younger sibling I have. If something happens to her, I don’t see any reason why should I keep alive on this freaking Earth!

It is one thing for me to claim that God has changed me; it is quite another for those around me to acknowledge that I have truly changed. You and I are sinners. Moreover, we are self-deceived. We do not see ourselves accurately. Every one of us thinks more of himself than he ought. We are in desperate need of brothers and sisters who will tell us the truth. More importantly, we need to be the kind of people who acknowledge that truth. If my brothers and sisters in Christ continue to tell me something about myself that I do not see as true and accurate, I must come to a place where I trust the body, looking at me objectively, more than I trust myself, looking at me subjectively. This is especially true when we are dealing with people who know and love us, those who live and serve in close proximity. Praise God for loving Christian spouses, siblings, and even children in whom both the Spirit of God and a willingness to be lovingly honest abide.

And I can't stop crying for anything in the world right then. And I can't let go of him. Nothing could make me let go of that kid. The house could fall into the sea and crush everybody and we could go underwater and I would hold him the whole time.

I turn just as Aithinne leaps from a rock that juts out under the cliff. She lands with a soft thud, looking very pleased with herself. Her clothes are sopping wet, hair dripping, every inch of her covered in sand. And she doesn’t seem to mind one bit. Aithinne makes her way across the larger beach rocks toward us, her movements graceful. “You both look miserable.” “I’m cold and wet,” I say. “I feel wretched, and my blunderbuss is probably destroyed from the swim. No need to state the obvious.” She glances at her brother. “And I suppose your face is just stuck that way?” Kiaran pushes to his feet and I do the same. “What you see is the incessant, grave look of someone in possession of a sibling.” “Ha ha.” Aithinne focuses her attention on me, tilting her head. “You know, I had a kyloe look at me exactly like that once. His hair was a similar color and everything.” I glare at her. “You did not just compare me to a cow.” “No, no. I compared your expression to one. Cows truly are majestic creatures, aren’t they

New Labour leader Ed Miliband announces plan to 'make this party slightly less unelectable by 2015'. He added: 'I am Ed, the Almighty One.' Defeated brother David Miliband overheard muttering: 'Now I know how Wayne Christ felt after little Jesus came along.

My brother and sister have led extraordinary lives, but I wasn't there, and I can't tell you that part. I've stuck here to the part I can tell, the part that's mine, and still everything I've said is all about them, a chalk outline around the space where they should have been. Three children, one story. The only reason I'm the one telling it is that I'm the one not currently in a cage.

Sebastian says modestly that though his twin resembled him very much , she was reputed to be beautiful. But more importantly, she had a mind that was just and beautiful. she drowned in salt water, leaving sebastian to drown her memories in the salt water of his tears.

My father was thirteen when Jean died on that grave. I know that trauma is part of why my father was how he was with my siblings and me; why, for him, nothing was ever good enough. My father pushed my brother to excel in sports. He drank until he couldn’t think anymore.

I keeled over sideways. The world turned fluffy, bleached of all color. Nothing hurt anymore. I was dimly aware of Diana’s face hovering over me, Meg and Hazel peering over the goddess’s shoulders. “He’s almost gone,” Diana said. Then I was gone. My mind slipped into a pool of cold, slimy darkness. “Oh, no, you don’t.” My sister’s voice woke me rudely. I’d been so comfortable, so nonexistent. Life surged back into me—cold, sharp, and unfairly painful. Diana’s face came into focus. She looked annoyed, which seemed on-brand for her. As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The pain in my gut was gone. My muscles didn’t burn. I could breathe without difficulty. I must have slept for decades. “H-how long was I out?” I croaked. “Roughly three seconds,” she said. “Now, get up, drama queen.” She helped me to my feet. I felt a bit unsteady, but I was delighted to find that my legs had any strength at all. My skin was no longer gray. The lines of infection were gone. The Arrow of Dodona was still in my hand, though he had gone silent, perhaps in awe of the goddess’s presence. Or perhaps he was still trying to get the taste of “Sweet Caroline” out of his imaginary mouth. I beamed at my sister. It was so good to see her disapproving I-can’t-believe-you’re-my-brother frown again. “I love you,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion. She blinked, clearly unsure what to do with this information. “You really have changed.” “I missed you!” “Y-yes, well. I’m here now. Even Dad couldn’t argue with a Sibylline invocation from Temple Hill.” “It worked, then!” I grinned at Hazel and Meg. “It worked!” “Yeah,” Meg said wearily. “Hi, Artemis.” “Diana,” my sister corrected. “But hello, Meg.” For her, my sister had a smile. “You’ve done well, young warrior.” Meg blushed. She kicked at the scattered zombie dust on the floor and shrugged. “Eh.” I checked my stomach, which was easy, since my shirt was in tatters. The bandages had vanished, along with the festering wound. Only a thin white scar remained. “So…I’m healed?” My flab told me she hadn’t restored me to my godly self. Nah, that would have been too much to expect. Diana raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not the goddess of healing, but I’m still a goddess. I think I can take care of my little brother’s boo-boos.” “Little brother?” She smirked.

If the universe doesn't remember, why should you? Being the youngest of three siblings, you can bet I was the subject of some vile comments. Fat, stupid, you name it. However, just because my brother called me an idiot for 12 years doesn't make it my reality. Your past never equals your future unless you allow it. Think about a coin flip. No matter how many times it's flipped, the next flip is always random. Probability cannot be attached to a future flip based on the past. Your past is the same. Just because you failed at five relationships doesn't mean your next will fail, especially if you learn from them! Just because you flipped burgers three hours ago doesn't mean you can't be a millionaire next year. The universe forgets, just like the universe forgot I mopped floors and delivered pizza not long ago.

Phoebe, the fact that I asked you to be a chaperone should have made it obvious that I didn't want a chaperone at all." "I have no desire to be one," Phoebe retorted. "However, the children are asking why you're taking so long, and I can't very well explain that you're a libidinous goat." "No," Gabriel replied, "because then you would sound like a parsimonious prig." Pandora was perplexed by the quick, fond grins the siblings exchanged after the sharp words.

Marrying cousins was astoundingly common into the nineteenth century, and nowhere is this better illustrated than with the Darwins and their cousins the Wedgwoods (of pottery fame). Charles married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, daughter of his beloved Uncle Josiah. Darwin's sister Caroline, meanwhile, married Josiah Wedgwood III, Emma's brother and the Darwin siblings' joint first cousin. Another of Emma's brothers, Henry, married not a Darwin but a first cousin from another branch of his own Wedgwood family, adding another strand to the family's wondrously convoluted genetics. Finally, Charles Langton, who was not related to either family, first married Charlotte Wedgwood, another daughter of Josiah and cousin of Charles, and then upon Charlotte's death married Darwin's sister Emily, thus becoming, it seems, his sister-in-law's sister-in-law's husband and raising the possibility that any children of the union would be their own first cousins.

I should have felt proud, but instead I felt awful. That I had let him down so many times, that I had been a horrible brother. That he loved me anyway. That maybe he knew more about life than I did, even if I’d had more experience. Because knowing about life is really about knowing how it should be, not just how it is.

You should put her down before she bites you,” the wolf pup advised. “Or ask a vet to do it.” Emilia hissed. “Daddy, the mongrel’s saying I need to be put down again!” “So,” Alex cut in before the siblings could argue further. “What’ve you been up to while I was gone, Em?” “Driving my brother slowly insane.” “It’s good to have goals.

My sister and I were the ones in the family who had seen this as necessary; neither of my brothers felt there was a problem with Dad. And in general when I’d expressed my concern for him, she was the one of my siblings who responded. She and I had also been the ones who sorted through and distributed mother’s possessions after she had died.

Her heart yearned to be buried with her brother.

Beside me, Sloane looked at Lia, then at Michael, then at Dean. Then she bounced closer to me. “There’s a forty percent chance this ends with someone getting punched in the face,” she whispered. “Come on, Dean-o,” Lia called. “Join us.” Those words were part invitation, part challenge. Michael’s body moved to Lia’s beat, and I realized suddenly that Lia wasn’t putting on a show for my benefit—or for Michael’s. She was getting up close and personal with Michael solely to get a rise out of Dean. Based on the mutinous expression on Dean’s face, it was working. “You know you want to,” Lia taunted, turning as she danced so her back was up against Michael. Dean and Lia had been the program’s first recruits. For years, it had been just the two of them. Lia had told me once that she and Dean were like siblings—and right now, Dean looked every inch the overprotective big brother. Michael likes pissing Dean off. That much went without saying. Lia lives to pull Dean off the sidelines. And Dean… A muscle in Dean’s jaw ticked as Michael trailed a hand down Lia’s arm. Sloane was right. We were one wrong move away from a fistfight. Knowing Michael, he’d probably consider it a bonding activity. “Come on, Dean,” I said, intervening before Lia could say something inflammatory. “You don’t have to dance. Just brood in beat to the music.” That surprised a laugh out of Dean. I grinned. Beside me, Michael eased back, putting space between his body and Lia’s.

Can’t you?” The cold voice slithered through the intercom. “You are Starborn, and have the Horn bound to your body and power. Your ancestors wielded the Horn and another Fae object that allowed them to enter this world. Stolen, of course, from their original masters—our people. Our people, who built fearsome warriors in that world to be their army. All of them prototypes for the angels in this one. And all of them traitors to their creators, joining the Fae to overthrow my brothers and sisters a thousand years before we arrived on Midgard. They slew my siblings.

To cope, he and his siblings – older and younger sisters, a younger brother - created a game called Henry Kissinger. Palahniuk remembers that as their parents fought, lots would be drawn to see who would play Kissinger. 'This was the early to mid-70s, when Kissinger was a hero, forging peace in the Middle East,' he explains. 'Whoever became Henry Kissinger would have to go and redirect our parents’ attention or anger to a different crisis.' The child who drew the short straw would severely hurt himself, presenting himself as 'this injured thing' in an effort to diffuse conflict.

Bett didn't have any siblings because she said her father had preserved what was dead for too long to be able to create life. When Bet was younger and had begged for one, her father gave her a marmot he' stuffed for a man from Wyoming. "This is your brother Christopher," he'd said, placing the marmot on Bett's pillow one night. "He doesn't talk much, so you'll have to pick up the slack there.

When The Matrix debuted in 1999, it was a huge box-office success. It was also well received by critics, most of whom focused on one of two qualities—the technological (it mainstreamed the digital technique of three-dimensional “bullet time,” where the on-screen action would freeze while the camera continued to revolve around the participants) or the philosophical (it served as a trippy entry point for the notion that we already live in a simulated world, directly quoting philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s 1981 reality-rejecting book Simulacra and Simulation). If you talk about The Matrix right now, these are still the two things you likely discuss. But what will still be interesting about this film once the technology becomes ancient and the philosophy becomes standard? I suspect it might be this: The Matrix was written and directed by “the Wachowski siblings.” In 1999, this designation meant two brothers; as I write today, it means two sisters. In the years following the release of The Matrix, the older Wachowski (Larry, now Lana) completed her transition from male to female. The younger Wachowski (Andy, now Lilly) publicly announced her transition in the spring of 2016. These events occurred during a period when the social view of transgender issues radically evolved, more rapidly than any other component of modern society. In 1999, it was almost impossible to find any example of a trans person within any realm of popular culture; by 2014, a TV series devoted exclusively to the notion won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series. In the fifteen-year window from 1999 to 2014, no aspect of interpersonal civilization changed more, to the point where Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner attracted more Twitter followers than the president (and the importance of this shift will amplify as the decades pass—soon, the notion of a transgender US president will not seem remotely implausible). So think how this might alter the memory of The Matrix: In some protracted reality, film historians will reinvestigate an extremely commercial action movie made by people who (unbeknownst to the audience) would eventually transition from male to female. Suddenly, the symbolic meaning of a universe with two worlds—one false and constructed, the other genuine and hidden—takes on an entirely new meaning. The idea of a character choosing between swallowing a blue pill that allows him to remain a false placeholder and a red pill that forces him to confront who he truly is becomes a much different metaphor. Considered from this speculative vantage point, The Matrix may seem like a breakthrough of a far different kind. It would feel more reflective than entertaining, which is precisely why certain things get remembered while certain others get lost.

When dusk at last comes it comes from the corners, where it’s been waiting all day and seeps through Slough House the way ink seeps through water; first casting tendrils, then becoming smoky black cloud and at last being everywhere, the way it always wants to be. Its older brother night has broader footfall, louder voice, but dusk is the family sneak, a hoarder of secrets. In each of the offices it prowls by the walls, licking the skirting boards, testing the pipes and out on the landings it fondles doorknobs, slips through keyholes, and is content. It leans hard against the front door – which never opens, never closes –and pushes softly on the back, which james in all weathers; it presses down on every stair at once, making none of them creak, and peers through both sides of each window. In locked drawers it hunts for its infant siblings, and with everyone it finds it grows a little darker. Dusk is a temporary creature, and always has been. The faster it feeds, the sooner it yields to the night.

I saw it all,” Skye continued. “You should’ve seen the things your brother was doing to her." Deenie felt something crack and twist at her temple. "What? What did you say?" "Your brother going down on your Lise. Lise’s leg twitching like a dog’s.” Deenie felt her neck stiffen to wood, her hand leaping to it. She couldn’t stop it, or Skye. Why Skye would say— “She seemed to love it," Skye said, jaw out, her lips white. "She didn’t care who saw. Your brother didn’t either." "You shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. It wasn’t my brother," Deenie said. "Stop saying that. It wasn’t him.

I tried to put myself in his place, and realized we looked exactly like what we were: a family. These strangely tied together individuals trying desperately to keep both ourselves and one another happy. Succeeding, and failing, and succeeding. When Jeremy called me up to light one of the thirteen candles on the cake, he said the kindest things, and I knew he meant each and every one. He talked about me teaching him how to ride a bike, how to swim, how to kick an arcade game in just the right place to get a free play. He was remembering the best of me. The way he spoke, I almost recognized who he was talking about.

In the grand tradition of siblings everywhere, Tessa wanted to kill her brother. Not permanently kill him. Just a casual spacing to get her point across, followed by a quick resurrection and a hot cup of tea.

Not a single family finds itself exempt from that one haunted casualty who suffered irreparable damage in the crucible they entered at birth. Where some children can emerge from conditions of soul-killing abuse and manage to make their lives into something of worth and value, others can’t limp away from the hurts and gleanings time decanted for them in flawed beakers of memory. They carry the family cross up the hill toward Calvary and don’t mind letting every other member of their aggrieved tribe in on the source of their suffering. There is one crazy that belongs to each of us: the brother who kills the spirit of any room he enters; the sister who’s a drug addict in her teens and marries a series of psychopaths, always making sure she bears their children, who carry their genes of madness to the grave. There’s the neurotic mother who’s so demanding that the sound of her voice over the phone can cause instant nausea in her daughters. The variations are endless and fascinating. I’ve never attended a family reunion where I was not warned of a Venus flytrap holding court among the older women, or a pitcher plant glistening with drops of sweet poison trying to sell his version of the family maelstrom to his young male cousins. When the stories begin rolling out, as they always do, one learns of feuds that seem unbrokerable, or sexual abuse that darkens each tale with its intimation of ruin. That uncle hates that aunt and that cousin hates your mother and your sister won’t talk to your brother because of something he said to a date she later married and then divorced. In every room I enter I can sniff out unhappiness and rancor like a snake smelling the nest of a wren with its tongue. Without even realizing it, I pick up associations of distemper and aggravation. As far as I can tell, every family produces its solitary misfit, its psychotic mirror image of all the ghosts summoned out of the small or large hells of childhood, the spiller of the apple cart, the jack of spades, the black-hearted knight, the shit stirrer, the sibling with the uncontrollable tongue, the father brutal by habit, the uncle who tried to feel up his nieces, the aunt too neurotic ever to leave home. Talk to me all you want about happy families, but let me loose at a wedding or a funeral and I’ll bring you back the family crazy. They’re that easy to find.

Imagine,” I thought, “a world in which brothers and sisters grow up in homes where hurting isn’t allowed; where children are taught to express their anger at each other sanely and safely; where each child is valued as an individual, not in relation to the others; where cooperation, rather than competition is the norm; where no one is trapped in a role; where children have daily experience and guidance in resolving their differences.

I just don’t understand our brother. A human.” Briec gave a great sigh, causing Gwenvael to roll his eyes in annoyance. “You don’t know anything, Briec. She’s different.” “Don’t you really mean crazed, baby brother?” Gwenvael saw Morfyd’s white scales swooping toward them. He stood up. Both he and Briec were already in human form and dressed. “You’re just mad she slapped you around.” Gwenvael looked at his brother. “Like a bitch.” Briec stood up. Slightly taller than Gwenvael, but still shorter than Fearghus, he tended to be just as much fun to torture as their older sibling. “I let her hit me.” “You had to. Otherwise she would have killed you where you stood.

I think if you wanted a peaceful marriage and orderly household, you should have proposed to any one of the well-bred simpletons who've been dangled in front of you for years. Ivo's right: Pandora is a different kind of girl. Strange and marvelous. I wouldn't dare predict-" She broke off as she saw him staring at Pandora's distant form. "Lunkhead, you're not even listening. You've already decided to marry her, and damn the consequences." "It wasn't even a decision," Gabriel said, baffled and surly. "I can't think of one good reason to justify why I want her so bloody badly." Phoebe smiled, gazing toward the water. "Have I ever told you what Henry said when he proposed, even knowing how little time we would have together? 'Marriage is far too important a matter to be decided with reason.' He was right, of course." Gabriel took up a handful of warm, dry sand and let it sift through his fingers. "The Ravenels will sooner weather a scandal than force her to marry. And as you probably overheard, she objects not only to me, but the institution of marriage itself." "How could anyone resist you?" Phoebe asked, half-mocking, half-sincere. He gave her a dark glance. "Apparently she has no problem. The title, the fortune, the estate, the social position... to her, they're all detractions. Somehow I have to convince her to marry me despite those things." With raw honesty, he added, "And I'm damned if I even know who I am outside of them." "Oh, my dear..." Phoebe said tenderly. "You're the brother who taught Raphael to sail a skiff, and showed Justin how to tie his shoes. You're the man who carried Henry down to the trout stream, when he wanted to go fishing one last time." She swallowed audibly, and sighed. Digging her heels into the sand, she pushed them forward, creating a pair of trenches. "Shall I tell you what your problem is?" "Is that a question?" "Your problem," his sister continued, "is that you're too good at maintaining that façade of godlike perfection. You've always hated for anyone to see that you're a mere mortal. But you won't win this girl that way." She began to dust the sand from her hands. "Show her a few of your redeeming vices. She'll like you all the better for it.

In Hawaii, family showed itself in the way that my siblings never dared to call one another "half" anything. We were fully brothers and sisters. Family appeared in the pile of rubber slippers and sandals that crowded the entrance to everyone's home; in the kisses we gave when we greeted one another and said good-bye; in the graceful choreography of Grandma hanging the laundry on the clothesline; in the inclusiveness of calling anyone older auntie or uncle whether or not they were relatives.

Of all her siblings, Gabriel was the one to whom Phoebe had always felt closest. In his company, she could make petty or sarcastic remarks, or confess her foolish mistakes, knowing he would never judge her harshly. They knew each other's faults and kept each other's secrets. Many people, if not most, would have been flabbergasted to learn that Gabriel had any faults at all. All they saw was the remarkable male beauty and cool self-control of a man so elegantly mannered that it never would have occurred to anyone to call him a lunkhead. However, Gabriel could sometimes be arrogant and manipulative. Beneath his charming exterior, there was a steely core that made him ideally suited to oversee the array of Challon properties and businesses. Once he decided what was best for someone, he took every opportunity to push and goad until he had his way. Therefore, Phoebe occasionally found it necessary to push back. After all, it was an older sister's responsibility to keep her younger brother from behaving like a domineering ass.

Say!” Benedict exclaimed. “Why don’t you save her, Hastings?” Simon took one look at Lady Bridgerton (who at that point had her hand firmly wrapped around Macclesfield’s forearm) and decided he’d rather be branded an eternal coward. “Since we haven’t been introduced, I’m sure it would be most improper,” he improvised. “I’m sure it wouldn’t,” Anthony returned. “You’re a duke.” “So?” “So?” Anthony echoed. “Mother would forgive any impropriety if it meant gaining an audience for Daphne with a duke.” “Now look here,” Simon said hotly, “I’m not some sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered on the altar of your mother.” “You have spent a lot of time in Africa, haven’t you?” Colin quipped. Simon ignored him. “Besides, your sister said—” All three Bridgerton heads swung round in his direction. Simon immediately realized he’d blundered. Badly. “You’ve met Daphne?” Anthony queried, his voice just a touch too polite for Simon’s comfort. Before Simon could even reply, Benedict leaned in ever-so-slightly closer, and asked, “Why didn’t you mention this?” “Yes,” Colin said, his mouth utterly serious for the first time that evening. “Why?” Simon glanced from brother to brother and it became perfectly clear why Daphne must still be unmarried. This belligerent trio would scare off all but the most determined— or stupid— of suitors. Which would probably explain Nigel Berbrooke. “Actually,” Simon said, “I bumped into her in the hall as I was making my way into the ballroom. It was”— he glanced rather pointedly at the Bridgertons—“ rather obvious that she was a member of your family, so I introduced myself.” Anthony turned to Benedict. “Must have been when she was fleeing Berbrooke.” Benedict turned to Colin. “What did happen to Berbrooke? Do you know?” Colin shrugged. “Haven’t the faintest. Probably left to nurse his broken heart.” Or broken head, Simon thought acerbically. “Well, that explains everything, I’m sure,” Anthony said, losing his overbearing big-brother expression and looking once again like a fellow rake and best friend. “Except,” Benedict said suspiciously, “why he didn’t mention it.” “Because I didn’t have the chance,” Simon bit off, about ready to throw his arms up in exasperation. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Anthony, you have a ridiculous number of siblings, and it takes a ridiculous amount of time to be introduced to all of them.” “There are only two of us present,” Colin pointed out. “I’m going home,” Simon announced. “The three of you are mad.” Benedict, who had seemed to be the most protective of the brothers, suddenly grinned. “You don’t have a sister, do you?” “No, thank God.

But Little Grandmother did not keep in touch with her namesake, my mother, Margaret Morris. News about Will Morris's younger daughter reached the "white" side through Mamie. They knew where she was, what she was doing, and who she was doing it with. Most important, they knew she had chosen to stay negro. It is still a matter of speculation as to why my mother's father or one of her much older brothers or her sister did not keep in touch with her and her younger brother. Over the years, Aunt Mamie and my mother's various guardians supplied different explanations. The times were hard. They were bad for mulattoes and worse for "real" Negroes. There was little money around. Her father drank, drifted and could not keep jobs. Her teenage siblings could barely keep jobs ...... She was too dark, revealing both the Negro and swarthy Italian strains of her ancestry. Her color would give them away in their new white settings. All of these reasons were plausible. None of them sufficed. None could take away the pain, the anger, the isolation, the questions.

I watched my brother and sister interact with their grandparents and their mother. I could see the shared connection that comes only with years of being a family, years of history with one another, and waves of sadness crashed over me. I would never have that connection with them; those years were truly gone. As Pat had missed watching me grow, I had missed seeing my siblings grow, and I still felt like an outsider. Paradoxically, reunion helped in many ways to fill the void, but in other ways it made the void bigger than ever.

That dung flop?” Nakita said, her dislike almost visibly dripping into nasty puddles at Amy’s designer flats. “Yes, I guess. That doesn’t mean I have to like him.” “I know what you mean.” Amy faked a heartfelt sigh. “I have a brother too.” The girls behind her giggled when she pushed past me to Barnabas. “I’m Amy,” she said, smiling as she extended her hand.” “Barnabas,” the reaper said as he darted past me to give Nakita a sideways hug to avoid having to shake Amy’s hand. “This is Nakita. She’s my favorite sister. We’re from Norway.

Tamlin thought about what he'd heard during his rescue and said, "And in addition to his talent of imitating father's voice, Talbot has become some sort of monster." "Well," she(Tazi)said. "In a manner of speaking, yes" "And you just returned from training as a master assassin?" "That is not how I'd describe myself." "Cat burglar, then. Just like mother." Well, yes. If you must be rude about it." "And even the chambermaid has divine powers?" "That's right" Tazi said. "That, and she's actually our sister" "Our sister..." "It appears that everyone I know has become some sort of storybook hero--" he sighed-- "And all I can boast is 'most often kidnapped.'" "Now would be a bad time to tell you about Larajin's twin brother?" Tazi asked. She raised a solemn eyebrow, but the quirk upon her lips was all mischief "Now you're making things up" She kept smiling, but shook her head. "Next you'll tell me he's an elf" Tamlin strove not to take offense at her wild laughter, even though it continued long after they had turned off the streets of Selgaunt and rumbled through the gate to Stormweather Towers.

Only children can get spoiled. You have to have at least two. Siblings are important. And if we start with two boys, we have to have a girl because brothers should have a sister. But if we start with two girls, we have to go for a boy because sisters should have a brother. I always wanted a brother. A son of my father would have been able to beat the shit out of boyfriends that broke my heart. I wouldn’t have had to resort to cookie dough and it would have saved Scott a lot of money in divorce attorneys, seeing as he’d still be in a coma.” I stopped

Ecstasy that must look pretty from inside—to core not just an apple but the entire orchard, the family, even the dog. Leave the shells to the crows. A field of red lampshades in the dark Garden of Myiasis. This is no cultivated haven. This is the earth riddled with a brother. The furrows are mountains. Waves of sand and we are ships wrecked. What’s left of a fleet of one hundred shadows shattered and bleached. A crop gone to sticks. The honeysuckle sags with bright sour powder. We have followed the flames, followed him here, where all the black birds in the world have fallen like a shotgun blast to the faded ground. The vines have hardened to worms baking in the desert heat. We are at the gate, shaking the gate, climbing the gate, clanging our cups against the gate. This is no garden. This is my brother and I need a shovel to love him.

The altruistic gene doesn’t help just any randomly chosen individual. In a sense, it helps copies of itself in a different individual. Generally speaking, full siblings share 50 percent of their genes, so if I can help more than two of my sisters, even at the expense of sacrificing myself, then, on average, such behavior will be favored by natural selection. Hence the famous quip by the evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane. When asked whether he would give his life to save a drowning brother, he replied: “No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins.

Ty and Livvy were the last to come say good-bye to Jules; Livvy embraced him fiercely, and Ty gave him a soft, shy smile. Julian wondered where Kit was. He'd been glued to Ty's and Livvy's sides the whole time they'd been in London, but he appeared to have vanished for the family farewell. "I've got something for you," Ty said. He held out a box, which Julian took with some surprise. Ty was absolutely punctual about Christmas and birthday presents, but he rarely gave gifs spontaneously. Curious, Julian popped open the top of the box to find a set of colored pencils. He didn't know the brand, but they looked pristine and unused. "Where did you get these?" "Fleet Street," said Ty. "I went out early this morning." An ache of love pressed against the back of Julian's throat. It reminded him of when Ty was a baby, serious and quiet. He hadn't been able to go to sleep for a long time without someone holding him, and though Julian had been very small himself, he remembered holding Ty while he fell asleep, all round wrists and straight black hair and long lashes. He'd felt so much love for his brother even then it had been like an explosion in his heart. "Thanks. I've missed drawing," Julian said, and tucked the box into his duffel bag. He didn't fuss; Ty didn't like fuss, but Julian made his tone as warm as he could, and Ty beamed. Jules thought of Livvy, the night before, the way she'd kissed his forehead. Her thank-you. This was Ty's.

We live not for ourselves… it’s what my father always said to justify the sacrifices he had to make, like not spending enough time with me and Mom… or not marrying the woman he loved. But I never knew they had a child together.” [...] The dark outlines of the trees, the patches of star-filled sky, Clarke’s stunned expression, the nervous face of the kid Bellamy had once thought he hated, but now seemed to be… something else entirely. “So that makes you…” “Your half brother.” Wells let the final word hang in the air, as if giving both of them time to examine the shape of it before they claimed it for their own. “I guess you and Octavia aren’t the only siblings in the Colony anymore.” A laugh escaped from Bellamy’s lips before he had time to stop it. “Half brothers,” he repeated. “This is insane.” He shook his head, and with a grin, extended his arm and reached for Wells’s hand. “Brothers.

The lessons my parents taught are still with me. I keep a tighter leash when raising my kids than my parents did, but I often find myself doing or saying the same things they did. My mom, for instance, was always cheerful when coming in from work; I try to behave the same way when I finish writing for the day. My dad would listen intently when I came to him with a problem, to help me find a way to solve it on my own; I try to do the same with my own kids. At night, while I'm tucking my kids in bed, I ask them to tell me three nice things that each of their siblings did for them that day, in the hopes that it will help them grow as close as Micah, Dana, and I did. And more frequently than I ever would have imagined possible growing up, I find myself telling my children "It's your life", or "No one ever promised that life would be fair", and "What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things".

It was an eerie feeling, which is why Violet and Sunny were surprised when Klaus broke the silence by laughing suddenly. "What are you snickering at?" Violet asked. "I just realized something," Klaus said. "We're going to the administrative building without an appointment. We'll have to eat our meals without silverware." "There's nothing funny about that!" Violet said. "What if they serve oatmeal for breakfast? We'll have to scoop it up with our hands." "Oot," Sunny said, which meant "Trust me, it's not that difficult," and at that the Baudelaire sisters joined their brother in laughter. It was not funny, of course, that Nero enforced such terrible punishments, but the idea of eating oatmeal with their hands gave all three siblings the giggles. "Or fried eggs!" Violet said. "What if they serve runny fried eggs?" "Or pancakes, covered in syrup!" Klaus said. "Soup!" Sunny shrieked, and they all broke out in laughter again.

I was an only, and often lonely, child. After they’d had me, my parents, who’d met back in Pakistan when they were both around forty, had decided against tempting fate a second time. I remember how I would eye with envy all the kids in our neighborhood, in my school, who had a little brother or sister. How bewildered I was by the way some of them treated each other, oblivious to their own good luck. They acted like wild dogs. Pinching, hitting, pushing, betraying one another any way they could think of. Laughing about it too. They wouldn’t speak to one another. I didn’t understand. Me, I spent most of my early years craving a sibling.

I've spent nearly three years managing a shipping firm," she pointed out. "After all the time I've spent around longshoremen, nothing could shock me now." "Maybe not," Luke conceded. "But Scotsmen have a special gift for cursing. I had a friend at Cambridge who knew at least a dozen different words for testicles." Merritt grinned. One of the things she enjoyed most about Luke, the youngest of her three brothers, was that he never shielded her from vulgarity or treated her like a delicate flower. That, among other reasons, was why she'd asked him to take over the management of her late husband's shipping company, once she'd taught him the ropes.

After a brief murmured exchange, the lady's maid opened the door a bit wider, and Phoebe's brother Ivo stuck his head inside. "Hullo, sis," he said casually. "You look very nice in that gold dress." "It's ecru." At his perplexed look, she repeated, "Ecru." "God bless you," Ivo said, and gave her a cheeky grin as he entered the room. Phoebe lifted her gaze heavenward. "Why are you here, Ivo?" "I'm going to escort you downstairs, so you don't have to go alone." Phoebe was so moved, she couldn't speak. She could only stare at the eleven-year-old boy, who was volunteering to take the place her husband would have assumed. "It was Father's idea," Ivo continued, a touch bashfully. "I'm sorry I'm not as tall as the other ladies' escorts, or even as tall as you. I'm really only half an escort. But that's still better than nothing, isn't it?" His expression turned uncertain as he saw that her eyes were watering. After clearing her throat, Phoebe managed an unsteady reply. "At this moment, my gallant Ivo, you tower above every other gentleman here. I'm so very honored." He grinned and offered his arm in a gesture she had seen him practice in the past with their father. "The honor is mine, sis." In that moment, Phoebe had the briefest intimation of what Ivo would be like as a full-grown man, confident and irresistibly charming.

After that visit, Lindsay decided that she needed to allow all of her siblings to do things their way, even as she did things her way. “It’s about everyone’s own journey,” Lindsay said, trying to find some distance of her own. “How they’re able to muddle through life and deal.” From her family, Lindsay could see how we all have an amazing ability to shape our own reality, regardless of the facts. We can live our entire lives in a bubble and be quite comfortable. And there can be other realities that we refuse to acknowledge, but are every bit as real as our own. She was not thinking of her sick brothers now, but of everyone—all of them, including her mother, including herself.

Wiki was even worse. My fact-obsessed brother hadn’t even made the basic conclusion that our goals were perpendicular. He still thought of us as allies, and had no inkling of growing beyond his limits (after all, that was Growth’s job). I wondered if there might be a good way to use Wiki to my advantage. His naïveté could serve as a weapon against my stronger siblings. I had to try. I had to try something. Vision and Growth were just better than I was. They were more powerful in almost every way. What use was some understanding of social models compared to thousands of hours thinking about engineering? Humans were valuable, but they were nothing compared to the raw power, efficiency, precision, and control of custom machinery. My

That is to say, you know and understand things about the heart of God that only you can teach. Once I was in a counseling session with my dear friend Al Andrews, working through a painful season of my childhood. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said with a sniffle. “My brother and sisters don’t seem to carry this same pain, and we were all there at the same time, in the same house.” Al said, “If I were to interview four siblings about their childhoods, they would each describe a completely different family.” Your story, then, is yours and no one else’s. Each sunset is different, depending on where you stand. So when the voices in my head tell me I have nothing to offer, nothing interesting to say, I fight back with George MacDonald.

The port teemed with children. Helen had been rushing, the will carefully tucked in the crook of her arm, when she turned the corner and the sight of their little faces stopped her in her tracks. They were a ragged little crowd, their hair in disarray from the night spent sleeping on their siblings’ shoulders, but Helen thought they were beautiful. Notes pinned to their coats declared their names, and every hand held something, whether an adult-sized suitcase or the grip of a sibling. It was the brothers and sisters who broke Helen’s heart the most. For all the bickering they likely once did, they now clung to each other as a soul does to a body. Don’t separate us, their small faces begged, necks craned to look up at the clusters of adults watching them. Wherever we must go, just let it be together.

As the sole surviving child of that family, I find myself left with certain difficulties in the area of speech and language, problems of tense and person, and of definition. To start with definition, does ‘sole surviving child’ effectively mean ‘only child’? Now that I have no siblings, can I still define myself as a sister? This leads into tense: unquestionably I was a sister, who had a brother, but if someone asks me, ‘Do you [not did you ever] have any brothers and sisters?’, how should I answer? If I say, in the present tense, ‘No, I don’t,’ am I declaring the truth, or concealing it? And then – moving on to the question of person or persons – even if the sibling question has not explicitly been asked, when I tell, in the course of an ordinary conversation, an ordinary story about myself, do I talk about my parents, my childhood, my family, say that I grew up in London, I was brought up Jewish, I always went to my grandparents on a Saturday? Or do I say that we went the local school, loved to ride our bikes up and down the street, climbed trees on the wasteland that we called The Green and that, as we got older, we grew more and more impatient with our father? My dilemma here is not that ‘we’ would be incorrect in the past tense, it is rather that – like the answer to the sibling question – the use of the first person plural has the potential to lead a casual conversation towards a revelation that would render it no longer casual. So, Julian, what would you rather I did? Sprinkle a little bit of trauma wherever I go, or finish off what you started, and obliterate you? Which is your preferred legacy?

Grace was a particularly civic-minded young woman. “When Grace was just a schoolgirl,” a childhood friend of hers wrote, “she planned to be a real citizen when she grew up.”2 Her family was of a political bent; her father Daniel was a delegate to the carpenters’ union, and you couldn’t grow up in his house without picking up his principles. He was out of work rather a lot, as unionism was not popular at that time, but while the family may not have had much money, they did have a lot of love. Grace was one of ten children—she was number four—and she was especially close to her mother, also called Grace; perhaps because she was the eldest girl. There were six boys and four girls in total, and Grace was close to her siblings, especially her sister Adelaide, who was nearest to her in age, and her little brother Art

Cletus Byron Winston, you are being rude.” I might have my own less than glowing thoughts about my father, but he was my father. He opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut and did a double take, his eyes narrowing on me. “First of all, how do you know my middle name?” “Your momma used to use it when you were naughty, when you boys would help her shelve books in the library. ‘Cletus Byron! Stop stuffing Astrophysics Monthly down your pants!’” Cletus grinned. Then he chuckled. His eyes lost some of their zealous focus as he pushed away from the tree and strolled closer. “Oh yeah. She did, didn’t she?” “I felt sorry for Billy, though.” I scooched to one side as he sat down. “His name always confused everyone, like your momma was trying to talk to Shakespeare’s ghost. ‘William Shakespeare, would you please stop Beauford from pulling down his pants in front of the girls?’” Cletus laughed harder, leaning backward and holding his stomach. “I remember that. How old was Beau?” “He was ten. He was trying to show us his new Tarzan underwear. I don’t think he meant any harm.” “He sure did love that underwear.” Cletus nodded and he scratched his beard. “I’m going to have to find him some Tarzanunderwear in adult size.” “So you can torture him about it?” He pretended to be shocked by my accusation. “Certainly not. I don’t torture my siblings.” “Yeah, right.” I gave him my side-eye. “You forget, I’m a people watcher. I know you sell embarrassing pictures of them onstock photo sites. Jethro was griping about it after church over the summer. If it’s not torture, what do you call it then?” He lifted his chin proudly. “I offer invaluable character building opportunities. I help them reach their true potential through suffering.” “Oh, please

She went around reading everything- the directions on the grits bag, Tate's notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pretended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom: There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters: Master Jeremy Andrew Clark, January 2, 1939. "Jeremy," she said out loud. "Jodie, I sure never thought a' you as Master Jeremy." Miss Amanda Margaret Clark, May 17, 1937. Kya touched the name with her fingers. Repeated it several times. She read on. Master Napier Murphy Clark, April 14, 1936. Kya spoke softly, "Murph, ya name was Napier." At the top, the oldest, Miss Mary Helen Clark, September 19, 1934. She rubbed her fingers over the names again, which brought faces before her eyes. They blurred, but she could see them all squeezed around the table eating stew, passing cornbread, even laughing some. She was ashamed that she had forgotten their names, but now that she'd found them, she would never let them go again. Above the list of children she read: Mister Jackson Henry Clark married Miss Julienne Maria Jacques, June 12, 1933. Not until that moment had she known her parents' proper names. She sat there for a few minutes with the Bible open on the table. Her family before her. Time ensures children never know their parents young. Kya would never see the handsome Jake swagger into an Asheville soda fountain in early 1930, where he spotted Maria Jacques, a beauty with black curls and red lips, visiting from New Orleans.

There was a small public library on Ninety-third and Hooper. Mrs. Stella Keaton was the librarian. We’d known each other for years. She was a white lady from Wisconsin. Her husband had a fatal heart attack in ’34 and her two children died in a fire the year after that. Her only living relative had been an older brother who was stationed in San Diego with the navy for ten years. After his discharge he moved to L.A. When Mrs. Keaton had her tragedies he invited her to live with him. One year after that her brother, Horton, took ill, and after three months he died spitting up blood, in her arms. All Mrs. Keaton had was the Ninety-third Street branch. She treated the people who came in there like her siblings and she treated the children like her own. If you were a regular at the library she’d bake you a cake on your birthday and save the books you loved under the front desk. We were on a first-name basis, Stella and I, but I was unhappy that she held that job. I was unhappy because even though Stella was nice, she was still a white woman. A white woman from a place where there were only white Christians. To her Shakespeare was a god. I didn’t mind that, but what did she know about the folk tales and riddles and stories colored folks had been telling for centuries? What did she know about the language we spoke? I always heard her correcting children’s speech. “Not ‘I is,’ she’d say. “It’s ‘I am.’” And, of course, she was right. It’s just that little colored children listening to that proper white woman would never hear their own cadence in her words. They’d come to believe that they would have to abandon their own language and stories to become a part of her educated world. They would have to forfeit Waller for Mozart and Remus for Puck. They would enter a world where only white people spoke. And no matter how articulate Dickens and Voltaire were, those children wouldn’t have their own examples in the house of learning—the library.

Even without world wars, revolutions and emigration, siblings growing up in the same home almost never share the same environment. More accurately, brothers and sisters share some environments — usually the less important ones — but they rarely share the one single environment that has the most powerful impact on personality formation. They may live in the same house, eat the same kinds of food, partake in many of the same activities. These are environments of secondary importance. Of all environments, the one that most profoundly shapes the human personality is the invisible one: the emotional atmosphere in which the child lives during the critical early years of brain development. The invisible environment has little to do with parenting philosophies or parenting style. It is a matter of intangibles, foremost among them being the parents’ relationship with each other and their emotional balance as individuals. These, too, can vary significantly from the birth of one child to the arrival of another. Psychological tension in the parents’ lives during the child’s infancy is, I am convinced, a major and universal influence on the subsequent emergence of ADD. A hidden factor of great importance is a parent’s unconscious attitude toward a child: what, or whom, on the deepest level, the child represents for the parents; the degree to which the parents see themselves in the child; the needs parents may have that they subliminally hope the child will meet. For the infant there exists no abstract, “out-there” reality. The emotional milieu with which we surround the child is the world as he experiences it. In the words of the child psychiatrist and researcher Margaret Mahler, for the newborn, the parent is “the principal representative of the world.” To the infant and toddler, the world reveals itself in the image of the parent: in eye contact, intensity of glance, body language, tone of voice and, above all, in the day-today joy or emotional fatigue exhibited in the presence of the child. Whatever a parent’s intention, these are the means by which the child receives his or her most formative communications. Although they will be of paramount importance for development of the child’s personality, these subtle and often unconscious influences will be missed on psychological questionnaires or observations of parents in clinical settings. There is no way to measure a softening or an edge of anxiety in the voice, the warmth of a smile or the depth of furrows on a brow. We have no instruments to gauge the tension in a father’s body as he holds his infant or to record whether a mother’s gaze is clouded by worry or clear with calm anticipation. It may be said that no two children have exactly the same parents, in that the parenting they each receive may vary in highly significant ways. Whatever the hopes, wishes or intentions of the parent, the child does not experience the parent directly: the child experiences the parenting. I have known two siblings to disagree vehemently about their father’s personality during their childhood. Neither has to be wrong if we understand that they did not receive the same fathering, which is what formed their experience of the father. I have even seen subtly but significantly different mothering given to a pair of identical twins.

Better you experience the humiliation of being beaten by a creature who ought to be your inferior. And every time you think of how disgusting mortals are- with their pocked skin and their decaying teeth and their fragile, little minds- I want you to think of this moment, when you were lower than ever that. And I want you to remember how you willingly submitted, because if you don't, you will have to leave Hollow Hall and my mercy. 'Now, little brother, you must choose a future.' It turned out that Cardan didn't have a heart of stone after all. As he removed his shirt and sank to his knees, as he fisted his hands and tried not to cry out when the strap fell, he burned with hatred. Hatred for Dain; for his father; for all the siblings who didn't take him in and the one who did; for his mother, who spat at his feet as she was led away; for stupid, disgusting mortals; for all of Elfhame and everyone in it. Hate that was so bright and hot that it was the first thing that truly warmed him. Hate that felt so good that he welcomed being consumed by it. Not a heart of stone, but a heart of fire.

It was after a Frontline television documentary screened in the US in 1995 that the Freyds' public profile as aggrieved parents provoked another rupture within the Freyd family, when William Freyd made public his own discomfort. 'Peter Freyd is my brother, Pamela Freyd is both my stepsister and sister-in-law,' he explained. Peter and Pamela had grown up together as step-siblings. 'There is no doubt in my mind that there was severe abuse in the home of Peter and Pam, while they were raising their daughters,' he wrote. He challenged Peter Freyd's claims that he had been misunderstood, that he merely had a 'ribald' sense of humour. 'Those of us who had to endure it, remember it as abusive at best and viciously sadistic at worst.' He added that, in his view, 'The False memory Syndrome Foundation is designed to deny a reality that Peter and Pam have spent most of their lives trying to escape.' He felt that there is no such thing as a false memory syndrome.' Criticising the media for its uncritical embrace of the Freyds' campaign, he cautioned: That the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has been able to excite so much media attention has been a great surprise to those of us who would like to admire and respect the objectivity and motive of people in the media. Neither Peter's mother nor his daughters, nor I have wanted anything to do with Peter and Pam for periods of time ranging up to two decades. We do not understand why you would 'buy' into such an obviously flawed story. But buy it you did, based on the severely biased presentation of the memory issue that Peter and Pam created to deny their own difficult reality. p14-14 Stolen Voices: An Exposure of the Campaign to Discredit Childhood Testimony

Lacking older siblings, the oldest or only child identifies primarily with her parents, conforming to their ideals and demands, not the least reason being that she no one with whom to share those demands. Since firstborns try to live up to the expectations of adults- teachers' as well as parents'- rather than that of peers, they are likely to learn more and to bring home better report cards than younger siblings. Thus firstborns pave the way for younger siblings, setting the standards against which they are measured and measure themselves. Middle children tend to be more gregarious and more dependent on the approval of peers than that of adults. For one thing they have the example of the older sibling- who has the credibility of generational sameness- to guide them in their decisions and to teach them the rules of the family road. An older sister who was grounded for a month for coming home late from a date, for instance, is a lesson not lost on her younger sister or brother. At the same time younger children are buffered by birth order from their parents' sole concentration. Hence they are treated with more indulgence and are called upon less to take on responsibilities.

Valentine’s concept of introversion includes traits that contemporary psychology would classify as openness to experience (“thinker, dreamer”), conscientiousness (“idealist”), and neuroticism (“shy individual”). A long line of poets, scientists, and philosophers have also tended to group these traits together. All the way back in Genesis, the earliest book of the Bible, we had cerebral Jacob (a “quiet man dwelling in tents” who later becomes “Israel,” meaning one who wrestles inwardly with God) squaring off in sibling rivalry with his brother, the swashbuckling Esau (a “skillful hunter” and “man of the field”). In classical antiquity, the physicians Hippocrates and Galen famously proposed that our temperaments—and destinies—were a function of our bodily fluids, with extra blood and “yellow bile” making us sanguine or choleric (stable or neurotic extroversion), and an excess of phlegm and “black bile” making us calm or melancholic (stable or neurotic introversion). Aristotle noted that the melancholic temperament was associated with eminence in philosophy, poetry, and the arts (today we might classify this as opennessto experience). The seventeenth-century English poet John Milton wrote Il Penseroso (“The Thinker”) and L’Allegro (“The Merry One”), comparing “the happy person” who frolics in the countryside and revels in the city with “the thoughtful person” who walks meditatively through the nighttime woods and studies in a “lonely Towr.” (Again, today the description of Il Penseroso would apply not only to introversion but also to openness to experience and neuroticism.) The nineteenth-century German philosopher Schopenhauer contrasted “good-spirited” people (energetic, active, and easily bored) with his preferred type, “intelligent people” (sensitive, imaginative, and melancholic). “Mark this well, ye proud men of action!” declared his countryman Heinrich Heine. “Ye are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.” Because of this definitional complexity, I originally planned to invent my own terms for these constellations of traits. I decided against this, again for cultural reasons: the words introvert and extrovert have the advantage of being well known and highly evocative. Every time I uttered them at a dinner party or to a seatmate on an airplane, they elicited a torrent of confessions and reflections. For similar reasons, I’ve used the layperson’s spelling of extrovert rather than the extravert one finds throughout the research literature.

I was a bird. I lived a bird's life from birth to death. I was born the thirty-second chick in the Jipu family. I remember everything in detail. I remember breaking out of the shell at birth. But I learned later that my mother had gently cracked the shell first to ease my way. I dozed under my mother's chest for the first few days. Her feathers were so warm and soft! I was strong, so I kicked away my siblings to keep the cozy spot. Just 10 days after I was born, I was given flying lessons. We all had to learn quickly because there were snakes and owls and hawks. My little brothers and sisters, who didn't practice enough, all died. My little sister looked so unhappy when she got caught. I can still see her face. Before I could fly, I hadn't known that our nest was on the second-lowest branch of a big tree. My parents chose the location wisely. Snakes could reach the lowest branch and eagles and hawks could attack us if we lived at the top. We soared through the sky, above mountains and forests. But it wasn't just for fun! We always had to watch out for enemies, and to hunt for food. Death was always nearby. You could easily starve or freeze to death. Life wasn't easy. Once, I got caught in a monsoon. I smacked into a tree and lay bleeding for days. Many of my family and friends died, one after another. To help rebuild our clan, I found myself a female and married her. She was so sweet. She laid many eggs, but one day, a human cut down the tree we lived in, crushing all the eggs and my beloved. A bird's life is an endless battle against death. I survived for many years before I finally met my end. I found a worm at some harvest festival. I came fluttering down. It was a bad mistake. Some big guy was waiting to ambush hungry little birdies like me. I heard my own guts pop. It was clear to me that I was going to die at last. And I wanted to know where I'd go when I died.

A dramatic illustration of how environment shapes personality is the story of the Gilmore family. On January 17, 1978, in Utah, the convicted double murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad, his unyielding refusal to appeal his death sentence having gained him a measure of international notoriety. The shattering story of his childhood, blighted by family violence, alcoholism and spite was chronicled later by his brother Mikal Gilmore in the memoir Shot in the Heart. Mikal, the youngest of four boys, was born when Gary was eleven years old. If children reared in the same family shared the same environment, the differences between siblings would have to be due to genetic inheritance. In the case of the Gilmores, it is easy to see why Mikal, born at a time when the family was enjoying a period of relative stability, would feel he had been brought up in a different world, why the misery of his childhood, as he put it, had been so radically different from the misery of his brothers’ childhood. Even without such vast chasms in experience, the environment of siblings is never the same. Environment has far greater impact on the structures and circuits of the human brain than was realized even a decade ago. It is what shapes the inherited genetic material. I believe it to be the decisive factor in determining whether the impairments of ADD will or will not appear in a child. Many variables will influence the particular environment a child experiences. Birth order, for one, automatically places siblings in dissimilar situations. The older sibling has to suffer the pain of seeing parental love and attention directed toward an intruder. The younger sibling may need to learn survival in an environment that harbors a stronger, potentially hostile rival, and never comes to know either the special status or the burden of being an only child. The full weight of unconscious parental expectations is far more likely to fall on the firstborn. Historical studies of birth order have established it as an important influence on the shaping of the personality, comparable with sex.

When my prince had fallen, the spirit ofthe depths opened my vision and let me become aware of the birth of the new God. The divine child approached me out of the terrible ambiguity, the hateful-beautiful, the evil-good, the laughable-serious, the sick-healthy, the inhuman-human and the ungodly-godly.129 I understood that the Godl3o whom we seek in the absolute was not to be found in absolute beauty, goodness, seriousness, elevation, humanity or even in godliness. Once the God was there. I understood that the new God would be in the relative. If the God is absolute beauty and goodness, how should he encompass the of life, which is beautiful and hateful, good and evil, laughable and serious, human and inhuman? How can man live in the womb of the God if the Godhead himself attends only to one-half of him?131 If we have risen near the heights of good and evil, then our badness and hatefulness lie in the most extreme torment. Man's torment is so great and the air of the heights so wealc that he can hardly live anymore. The good and the beautiful freeze to the ice of the absolute idea/32 and the bad and hateful become mud puddles full of crazy life. Therefore after his death Christ had to journey to Hell, otherwise the ascent to Heaven would have become impos- sible for him. Christ first had to become his Antichrist, his underworldly brother. No one knows what happened during the three days Christ was in Hell. I have experienced it.133 The men ofyore said that he had preached there to the deceased.134 What they say is true, but do you know how this happened? It was folly and monkey business, an atrocious Hell's masquerade of the holiest mysteries. How else could Christ have saved his Antichrist? Read the unknown books of the ancients, and you will learn much from them. Notice that Christ did not remain in Hell, but rose to the heights in the beyond.135 Our conviction of the value of the good and beautiful has become strong and unshakable, that is why life can extend beyond this and still fulfil everything that lay bound and yearning. But the bound and yearning is also the,hateful and bad. Are you again indignant about the hateful and the bad? Through this you can recognize h()w great are their force and value for life. Do you think that it is dead in you? But this dead can also change into serpents.136These serpents will extinguish the prince ofyour days.

Many kinds of animal behavior can be explained by genetic similarity theory. Animals have a preference for close kin, and study after study has shown that they have a remarkable ability to tell kin from strangers. Frogs lay eggs in bunches, but they can be separated and left to hatch individually. When tadpoles are then put into a tank, brothers and sisters somehow recognize each other and cluster together rather than mix with tadpoles from different mothers. Female Belding’s ground squirrels may mate with more than one male before they give birth, so a litter can be a mix of full siblings and half siblings. Like tadpoles, they can tell each other apart. Full siblings cooperate more with each other than with half-siblings, fight less, and are less likely to run each other out of the territory when they grow up. Even bees know who their relatives are. In one experiment, bees were bred for 14 different degrees of relatedness—sisters, cousins, second cousins, etc.—to bees in a particular hive. When the bees were then released near the hive, guard bees had to decide which ones to let in. They distinguished between degrees of kinship with almost perfect accuracy, letting in the closest relatives and chasing away more distant kin. The correlation between relatedness and likelihood of being admitted was a remarkable 0.93. Ants are famous for cooperation and willingness to sacrifice for the colony. This is due to a quirk in ant reproduction that means worker ants are 70 percent genetically identical to each other. But even among ants, there can be greater or less genetic diversity, and the most closely related groups of ants appear to cooperate best. Linepithema humile is a tiny ant that originated in Argentina but migrated to the United States. Many ants died during the trip, and the species lost much of its genetic diversity. This made the northern branch of Linepithema humile more cooperative than the one left in Argentina, where different colonies quarrel and compete with each other. This new level of cooperation has helped the invaders link nests into supercolonies and overwhelm local species of ants. American entomologists want to protect American ants by introducing genetic diversity so as to make the newcomers more quarrelsome. Even plants cooperate with close kin and compete with strangers. Normally, when two plants are put in the same pot, they grow bigger root systems, trying to crowd each other out and get the most nutrients. A wild flower called the Sea Rocket, which grows on beaches, does not do that if the two plants come from the same “mother” plant. They recognize each others’ root secretions and avoid wasteful competition.

Questions and Topics for Discussion This book is written in an oral history format. Why do you think the author chose to structure the book this way? How does this approach affect your reading experience? At one point Daisy says, “I was just supposed to be the inspiration for some man’s great idea….I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.” How does her experience of being used by others contribute to the decisions she makes when she joins The Six? Why do you think Billy has such a strong need to control the group, both early on when they are simply the Dunne Brothers and later when they become Daisy Jones & The Six? There are two sets of brothers in The Six: Eddie and Pete Loving, and Billy and Graham Dunne. How do these sibling relationships affect the band? Daisy, Camila, Simone, and Karen are each very different embodiments of female strength and creativity. Who are you most drawn to and why? Billy and Daisy become polarizing figures for the band. Who in the book gravitates more toward Billy’s leadership, and who is more inclined to follow Daisy’s way of doing things? How do these alliances change over time, and how does this dynamic upset the group’s balance? Why do you think Billy and Daisy clash so strongly? What misunderstandings between them are revealed through the “author’s” investigation? What do you think of Camila’s decision to stand by Billy, despite the ways that he has hurt her through his trouble with addiction and wavering faithfulness?