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Daily Inspiration Quote by Olivia Wilde

"I was a tomboy, and I didn't have a bunch of brothers, but I always wanted them, and so I sort of adopted a few of my great friends to be my brother"

About this Quote

There is something disarmingly strategic in how Olivia Wilde frames identity here: not as a fixed personality trait, but as a social workaround. “Tomboy” arrives first as shorthand for a girl who learned to move through the world with a certain physical confidence, maybe even a protective layer of “one of the guys” ease. Then she undercuts the stereotype by pointing to what’s missing: no brothers. The line isn’t about rejecting femininity so much as naming a kind of craving for built-in camaraderie, the default access to roughhousing, loyalty, and unfiltered intimacy that pop culture codes as “brother energy.”

The verb choice does the real work. She “wanted” brothers, then “adopted” them. That’s not sentimentality; it’s agency. Wilde turns family from biology into curation, suggesting friendship can be engineered into a chosen kinship structure when the original blueprint didn’t include it. It’s a quietly modern move: intimacy as something you build on purpose, with people who fit, rather than something you’re simply assigned.

The subtext also nods to how women in public-facing industries learn to assemble safety and steadiness. Calling close male friends “brother” is both affectionate and boundary-setting: it signals trust without romance, closeness without the constant cultural pressure to sexualize cross-gender relationships. In a celebrity ecosystem that treats every friendship like a potential headline, “brother” becomes a way to keep something personal from being turned into plot.

Quote Details

TopicFriendship
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Wilde, Olivia. (2026, February 17). I was a tomboy, and I didn't have a bunch of brothers, but I always wanted them, and so I sort of adopted a few of my great friends to be my brother. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-a-tomboy-and-i-didnt-have-a-bunch-of-97676/

Chicago Style
Wilde, Olivia. "I was a tomboy, and I didn't have a bunch of brothers, but I always wanted them, and so I sort of adopted a few of my great friends to be my brother." FixQuotes. February 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-a-tomboy-and-i-didnt-have-a-bunch-of-97676/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I was a tomboy, and I didn't have a bunch of brothers, but I always wanted them, and so I sort of adopted a few of my great friends to be my brother." FixQuotes, 17 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-a-tomboy-and-i-didnt-have-a-bunch-of-97676/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Olivia Add to List
Olivia Wilde on Tomboy Youth and Finding Family in Friendships
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About the Author

Olivia Wilde

Olivia Wilde (born March 10, 1984) is a Actress from USA.

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