Erma Bombeck Quotes

Adults can take a simple holiday for Children and screw it up. What began as a presentation of simple gifts to delight and surprise children around the Christmas tree has culminated in a woman unwrapping six shrimp forks from her dog, who drew her name.

I was leafing through a magazine where there was a before-and-after picture of a woman who went from a size 5 to a size 3 by liposuction. Was she serious? I've cooked bigger turkeys than her "before" picture.

Never underestimate what it takes to watch someone you love in pain.

What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?

Our teen-agers withdrew to their bedrooms on their thirteenth birthday and didn't show themselves to us again until it was time to get married.

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, 'A house guest,' you're wrong because I have just described my kids.

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order.

The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.

Hello there. I'm out social climbing, but if you leave your name and number and if you're anybody, I'll get back to you.

Explain to me how he [her son] can ride a bicycle, run, play ball, set up a camp, swing, fight a war, swim and race for eight hours ... and has to be driven to the garbage can.

Women are never what they seem to be. There is the woman you see and there is the woman who is hidden. Buy the gift for the woman who is hidden.

. . . but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute - look at it and really see it - live it - and never give it back.

A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend - and he's a priest.

My sister and I never engaged in sibling rivalry. Our parents weren't that crazy about either one of us.

When you look like your passport photo, it's time to go home.

Kids need love the most when they're acting most unlovable.

Those magazine dieting stories always have the testimonial of a woman who wore a dress that could slipcover New Jersey in one photo and thirty days later looked like a well-dressed thermometer.

With girls, everything looks great on the surface. But beware of drawers that won't open. They contain a three-month supply of dirty underwear, unwashed hose, and rubber bands with blobs of hair in them.

A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.

As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.

Occasionally, once a speaker is on his feet, it is difficult to get him to sit down. ... If and when he returns to earth, he notices half of the room is paging the other half and a few are playing with the melted candles.

There would have been more 'I love you's' and more, 'I'm sorry's'.

As a graduate of the Zsa Zsa Gabor School of Creative mathematics, I honestly do not know how old I am.

I don't think women outlive men, Doctor. It only seems longer.

The grass is always greener over the septic tank.

The Rose Bowl is the only bowl I've ever seen that I didn't have to clean.

She's as funny as a toothache

When it comes to cooking, five years ago I felt guilty "just adding water." Now I want to bang the tube against the countertop and have a five-course meal pop out. If it comes with plastic silverware and a plate that self-destructs, all the better.

Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted.

We even switched to a newly-formed church across the town that gave one hundred and twenty trading stamps each time we attended. (We now worship a brown and white chicken with a sunburst on its chest.)

Grandparenthood is one of life's rewards for surviving your own children.

One certainty when you travel is the moment you arrive in a foreign country, the American dollar will fall like a stone.

When they told me I needed a mastectomy, I thought of the thousands of luncheons and dinners I had attended where they slapped a name tag on my left bosom. I always smiled and said, 'Now, what shall we name the other one?' That would no longer be a problem.

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.

One never realizes how different a husband and wife can be until they begin to pack for a trip.

A member of the committee slapped a name tag over my left bosom. "What shall we name the other one?" I smiled. She was not amused.

All of a sudden, I feel very old and very tired. Maybe when I get to California, the smog, brush fires, floods, and earthquakes will cheer me up.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

If I had my life to live over again, I would have waxed less and listened more. ... I would have cried and laughed less while watching television ... and more while watching real life. ... But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it ... look at it and really see it ... try it on ... live it ... exhaust it ... and never give the minute back until there was nothing left of it.

I became hysterical and frightened and begged for sedation. And that was just the first prenatal visit.

I've decided life is too fragile to finish a book I dislike just because it cost $16.95 and everyone else loved it. Or eat a fried egg with a broken yolk (which I hate) when the dog would leap over the St. Louis Arch for it.

Friends are "annuals" that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a "perennial" that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There's a place in the garden for both of them.

Remember, you can lead a fifty-seven-year-old body to motherhood, but you can't make it stay awake.

What's with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?

When you're an orthodox worrier, some days are worse than others.

With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.

I just clipped 2 articles from a current magazine. One is a diet guaranteed to drop 5 pounds off my body in a weekend. The other is a recipe for a 6 minute pecan pie.

not all bears have their own television series. Some of them are unemployed wild animals.