My brother’s birthday was a few weeks ago. (I sent him this funny birthday e-card.) We’ve never been super close but over the years, I’ve grown to appreciate the bond that we do share.

The problem is that many of us believe our sibling relations should be like the movies: tight, loving, comfortable and close.

But, ah, life is not like the movies (shocker, right?). And our sisters and brothers are who they are. As the years go by, hopefully we can discover the common ground and peacefully acknowledge the differences.

Here are some quotations on brotherhood that may fit your fraternal relations. (The first one explains what I said above…but a little better!)

“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.”  – Susan Scarf Merrell

“A sibling may be the keeper of one’s identity, the only person with the keys to one’s unfettered, more fundamental self.”  – Marian Sandmaier

“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.”  – Jane Mersky Leder

“It snowed last year too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”  – Dylan Thomas

“The younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder.”  – Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.”  – Antisthenes

“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.  Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’  ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply.  ‘We’re raising boys’.”  – Harmon Killebrew

“The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out his nose.”  – Garrison Keillor

“As we grew up, my brothers acted like they didn’t care,
but I always knew they looked out for me and were there!”  – Catherine Pulsifer, Inspirational Words of Wisdom

Oh, brothers! I don’t care for brothers. My elder brother won’t die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“What strange creatures brothers are!” – Jane Austen

Indeed, they can be such strange creatures. This birthday, send your strange creature (I mean brother) an e-card to remember. We have a fun collection of birthday e-cards for brother from which to choose.

Yes, my brother deserves a singing Elvis chicken. Don’t we all?