The best thing about having a sister was that I always had a friend.

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.

Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.

Having a sister is like having a best friend you can't get rid of. You know whatever you do, they'll still be there.

The mildest, drowsiest sister has been known to turn tiger if her sibling is in trouble.

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.

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring - quite often the hard way.

A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self.

Our siblings push buttons that cast us in roles we felt sure we had let go of long ago - the baby, the peacekeeper, the caretaker, the avoider.... It doesn't seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we've traveled.

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.

It was nice growing up with someone like you - someone to lean on, someone to count on... someone to tell on!

I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends.

Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.

Our siblings. They resemble us just enough to make all their differences confusing, and no matter what we choose to make of this, we are cast in relation to them our whole lives long.

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply...

Sibling relationships - and 80 percent of Americans have at least one - outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.