"She didn't like that I was trailing behind her.  I knew it.  We'd had that conversation before.  The one where she says she wants me to feel more special when i'm with her, not less.  The one where I admit that I sometimes feel less significant when I'm with her and she admits it's hard to feel like her success sometimes hurts me.  The one where Dee says that she has me on a pedestal, that I'm her hero, that her confidence in me is greater than my confidence in myself - and that drives her crazy.  The one that ends with tears because our feelings are so knotted together, we don't know how to untie them." 
-Voice Lessons by Cara Mentzel

"My sister and I shared love, but we often haven't shared our lives.  I've wished we did."
-Voice Lessons by Cara Mentzel

"I've wished I were a habit for her, that when she fiddled absentmindedly with her phone she always thought to call me." 
-Voices Lessons by Cara Mentzel

"I imagine Dina and I were like a lot of sisters.  When we were younger we shared a laundry basket and chores.  We couldn't veer farther from each other than a closed bedroom door.  But we were getting older.  We no longer shared a home, and no longer saw each other every day.  Yet our bond was indisputable.  There was a tacit quality to our closeness, an abiding undercurrent of security, unaffected by physical distance or the frequency of our phone calls.  I often consider all the possibilities, the ways the bond between sisters is developed.  For Dina and me, perhaps it can be traced to the length of time we'd known each other?  The familiarity of each other's face, skin, smell, or voice?  Our shared gene pool or shared past experiences?   Or maybe, as the younger sister, I was (and continue to be) bound to Dina because I know no world without her in it. 

Still, I wanted to feel like a friend to Dina, not a perpetual little sister.  I'd hoped the different between our ages would feel more narrow the further we traveled into our futures.  But even in our mid-twenties, I didn't feel like it had.  Moreover, I felt more self-conscious with her than with anyone else.  I tried not to be, but trying not to be self-conscious is like trying not to yawn.  I was even anxious talking to dina on the phone.  If I knew she was going to call I'd construct a mental list of discussion topics, news I could share with her and questions I could ask her."
-Voices Lessons by Cara Mentzel

"This was another tricky part of being Dina's sister, of being anyone's sibling, probably.  Comparison is built into your very existense.  Someone is always the Smart One.  The Talented One.  The Funny One.  You can't both be fast, one of you has to be faster - The Fast One.  Even if someone else isn't passing judgement, you're making the comparisons on your own."
-Voice Lessons by Cara Mentzel