Selected Quotes by Erma Bombeck
Erma Bombeck- Erma Louise Bombeck (February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996) was an American humorist. She achieved great popularity for her newspaper humor column describing suburban home life. It was syndicated from 1965 to 1996. She also published 15 books, of which most became bestsellers.
By the 1970s, her columns were read semi-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. Her work stands as a humorous chronicle of middle-class life in America after World War II. It was among the generation of parents who produced the Baby Boomers.
Between 1965 and before April 17, 1996, or five days before her death, She wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns. She used broad and sometimes eloquent humor. She chronicled the ordinary life of a Midwestern suburban housewife.
Quotes by Erma Bombeck:
“If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“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.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“I come from a home where gravy is a beverage.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“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.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, 'No thank you' to desert that night. And for what?!”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Written on her tombstone: "I told you I was sick.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“Housework can kill you if done right.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“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.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of food.”
Erma Bombeck, Funny
“I don't know why no one ever thought to paste a label on the toilet-tissue spindle giving 1-2-3 directions for replacing the tissue on it. Then everyone in the house would know what Mama knows.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“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.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“...I remember thinking how often we look, but never see...we listen, but never hear...we exist, but never feel. We take our relationships for granted. A house is only a place. It has no life of its own. It needs human voices, activity and laughter to come alive.”
― Erma Bombeck, A Marriage Made in Heaven: Or Too Tired for an Affair
Erma Bombeck, Life
“There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.”
Erma Bombeck, Life
“Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.”
Erma Bombeck, Life, Courage
“It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.”
Erma Bombeck, Goals
“Laugh now, cry later.”
― Erma Bombeck, The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank
Erma Bombeck, Goals
“If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it.”
Erma Bombeck, Goals
“Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.”
Erma Bombeck, Goals
“Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.”
Erma Bombeck, Goals
“If I had my life to live over...
...I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
I would have eaten popcorn in the "good" living room and worried less about the dirt when you lit the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would have burnt the pink candle that was sculptured like a rose before it melted while being stored.
I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and never worried about grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television ... and more while watching real life.
I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband which I took for granted.
I would have eaten less cottage cheese and more ice cream.
I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for a day.
I would never have bought ANYTHING just because it was practical/wouldn't show soil/ guaranteed to last a lifetime.
When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now, go get washed up for dinner."
There would have been more I love yous ... more I'm sorrys ... more I'm listenings ... 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 that minute back until there was nothing left of it.”
― Erma Bombeck, Eat Less Cottage Cheese And More Ice Cream Thoughts On Life From Erma Bombeck
Erma Bombeck, Goals
“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in.”
Erma Bombeck, Goals, Courage
“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”
Erma Bombeck, Goals, Courage
“Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.”
Erma Bombeck, Success
“Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.”
Erma Bombeck, Love
“A child needs your love most when he deserves it least.”
Erma Bombeck, Love
“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”
Erma Bombeck, Society
“When humor goes, there goes civilization.”
Erma Bombeck, Society
“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”
Erma Bombeck, Society
“I love my mother for all the times she said absolutely nothing.... Thinking back on it all, it must have been the most difficult part of mothering she ever had to do: knowing the outcome, yet feeling she had no right to keep me from charting my own path. I thank her for all her virtues, but mostly for never once having said, "I told you so.”
Erma Bombeck, Sex
“Everyone is guilty at one time or another of throwing out questions that beg to be ignored, but mothers seem to have a market on the supply. "Do you want a spanking or do you want to go to bed?" Don't you want to save some of the pizza for your brother?" Wasn't there any change?”
Erma Bombeck, Sex
“When God Created Mothers"
When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."
And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands."
The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way."
It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have."
That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded.
One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word."
God," said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow...."
I can't," said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger...and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower."
The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed.
But tough!" said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure."
Can it think?"
Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator.
Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek.
There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model."
It's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear."
What's it for?"
It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride."
You are a genius, " said the angel.
Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.”
― Erma Bombeck, When God Created Mothers
Erma Bombeck, Sex
“Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned, it's full of suprises.”
Erma Bombeck, Happiness
“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.”
Erma Bombeck, Belief
“As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.”