Deborah Tannen Quotes

The theme of sisters - of missing sisters, of needing sisters, the special love that sisters share or the antagonism sisters share - is something that is very close to me.

When women told me they'd always wished they had a sister, they were thinking of this ideal of mutual encouragement and support. Many of those who have sisters also yearn for this ideal because their relationships with their sisters don't always live up to it.

Your sister knows everything to say to piss you off. But sisters tend to be each other's biggest champion and also their hardest critics.

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

My big sister Melissa, is such a stud and my little sister Suzanna, has always had a perfect body and big blue eyes. We were a force.

I have three sisters. I went to an all-girls academy.

Sisters, as you know, also have a unique relationship. This is the person who has known you your entire life, who should love you and stand by you no matter what, and yet it's your sister who knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt you the most.

Growing up in a house of five girls, I couldn't help but glance at a fashion magazine or two.

I think I am a pretty good sister.

I think it is important to remember that there are so many different ways to be sisters.

I have two sisters; one is two years older, and one is eight years older. That helped me understand how completely different sister relationships can be.

There is something about a guy who has a great relationship with his sisters.

I was born to be your rival,' she [Anne] said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters, aren't we?

Sisters, while they are growing up, tend to be very rivalrous and as young mothers they are given to continual rivalrous comparisons of their several children. But once the children grow older, sisters draw closer together and often, in old age, they become each other's chosen and most happy companions. In addition to their shared memories of childhood and of their relationship to each other's children, they share memories of the same home, the same homemaking style, and the same small prejudices about housekeeping that carry the echoes of their mother's voice.

I've always loved sister stories in fiction, from the time I was little, reading about Beezus and Ramona. I've always wanted to write a sister story.

Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after.

Oh yes. Draw your hem back from my mud, little sister.

Sisters annoy, interfere, criticize. Indulge in monumental sulks, in huffs, in snide remarks. Borrow. Break. Monopolize the bathroom. Are always underfoot. But if catastrophe should strike, sisters are there. Defending you against all comers.

I am not a pest," Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

As the youngest of three girls, most of my childhood works were revenge fantasies against my older sisters, so of course the sisters in 'Pretty Girls' share some similarities to my own.

I interviewed more than 100 women about their sisters, but if they also had brothers, I asked them to compare. Most said they talked to their sisters more often, at greater length and, yes, about more personal topics. This often meant that they felt closer to their sisters, but not always.

For each other, at each other: Sisters can be either or both. The same could be said of people in any close relationship. Yet there is something special about sisters - specially gratifying and specially fraught.

My sisters are my best friends and such incredible women.

I love having a sister. Its a great relationship that you dont understand unless you have one, I guess.

People across the country think I'm jealous of my dear, beloved, sweet, angel sister. But there is no-o-o-o jea-ea-ea- lou-ou-ou-ou-sy-y-y-y. I love her too much.