Erma Bombeck Quotes

Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.

Phrases and their actual meanings: My teacher has never liked me. Expect a phone call before lunch from the teacher informing you that your child has been launching hot dogs by compressing them inside a small Thermos and then removing the lid quickly.

One son appears in stereo - a transistor in one ear and the phone in the other.

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it.

I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of food

If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.

There is so much to teach, and the time goes so fast.

Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.

Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.

I originate from a family where sauce is viewed as a refreshment.

A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween.

A child develops individuality long before he develops taste.

Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?

No One Diets on Thanksgiving.

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

What does it profit a 78-year-old woman to sit around the pool in a bikini if she cannot feed herself?

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

It is difficult to single out one sport over another, but if I have to name one in my separation suit, it will undoubtedly be football.

I have always felt cookbooks were fiction and the most beautiful words in the English language were 'room service.

There is only one thing harder in this world than forgiving. It's to ask forgiveness armed only with, 'I'm sorry'.

For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.

Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I'm taking with me when I go.

People usually survive their illnesses, but the paper work eventually does them in. Filing a claim for insurance is terminal.

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.

Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how. No mother is all good or all bad, all laughing or all serious, all loving or all angry. Ambivalence rushes through their veins.

Have you any idea how many children it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen Three. It takes one to say What light and two more to say I didn't turn it on.

Everyone I talked to was a recording-the bank, the elevator, your office, the school, a wrong number. You used to be able to call a wrong number and get a person.

Having a delivery covered by Medicare just isn't going to fly. It's too risky for a woman to put a baby down and not remember where she left it.

My son did not show signs of a money deficiency until he opened his small fist in the nursery and found it was empty.

Motherhood isn't just a series of contractions; it's a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel a responsibility to protect and defend that human being.