Erma Bombeck Quotes

In Russia, as I sat there day after day wearing headphones, listening to the interpreter struggle to make our words relevant, I wondered if we could establish meaningful rapport with a nation that had never seen raisins dance in dark glasses on TV...never had a garage sale.

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

Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase.

Most children's first words are 'Mama' or 'Daddy.' Mine were, 'Do I have to use my own money?'

A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.

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

The grass is always greener over the septic tank.

I will buy any creme, cosmetic, or elixir from a woman with a European accent.

It's frightening to wake up one morning and discover that while you were asleep you went out of style.

I'm going to stop punishing my children by saying, “Never mind! I'll do it myself.

In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn't danced in television.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.

A child needs your love most when he deserves it least

I hated skiing or any other sport where there was an ambulance waiting at the bottom of the hill.

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

Parenting is a negative thing. Keep your children from killing themselves, or anyone else, and hope for the best.

There was a time when the respect and trust my children had for me would have made you sick to your stomach. They believed I could blow on a red traffic light and turn it green.

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

I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you're both breathless. They crash . . . you add a longer tail . . . you patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they'll fly.

I've never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying "Open!" was never a big deal, but holding that television tuner and realizing I alone control what is flashed on the screen brings out the Iacocca in me.

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.

If I raised my hand to wipe the hair out of my children's eyes, they'd flinch and call their attorney.

The mole rat is the only rodent born without a fur coat. With a good lawyer, someone would pay for that little oversight.

I learned the importance of a man's chair early in life. I learned that he may love several wives, embrace several cars, be true to more than one political philosophy, and be equally committed to several careers, but he will have only one comfortable chair in his life. I learned it will be an ugly chair. It will match nothing in the entire house. It will never wear out.

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.

Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.

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.

Why would anyone steal a shopping cart? It's like stealing a two-year-old.

When humor go's, there go's civilization.

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.

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.

A child develops individuality long before he develops taste.

Never accept a drink from a urologist.

. . . 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.

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

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.

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.

My mother phones daily to ask, "Did you just try to reach me?" When I reply no, she adds, "So, if you're not too busy, call me while I'm still alive," . . . and hangs up.

For some of us, watching a miniseries that lasts longer than most marriages is not easy.

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.

A small waist makes you tire easily.

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.

Men who have a thirty-six-tele vised-football- games-a- week-habit should be declared legally dead and their estates probated.

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

It's [motherhood] the biggest on-the-job- training program in existence today.

Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.

Encourage independence in your children by regularly losing them in the supermarket.

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.

Family life got better and we got our car back - as soon as we put 'I love Mom' on the license plate.

One meal a day is enough for a lion and would be for all of us if all we did all day was swat flies.

Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.

Limousines used to be reserved for the ruling class, or, on special occasions, for the working class. Today, limousines are like taxicabs with the door handles still intact.

If compliments were food, I'd have starved to death 28 years ago.

... it's simply wrong to always order [kids] to stop that fighting. There are times when one child is simply defending his rights and damned well should be fighting.

Adults are always telling young people, 'These are the best years of your life.' Are they? I don't know. Sometimes when adults say this to children I look into their faces. They look like someone on the top seat of the Ferris wheel who has had too much cotton candy and barbecue. They'd like to get off and be sick but everyone keeps telling them what a good time they're having.

Maybe you know why a child can reject a hot dog with mustard served on a soft bun at home, yet eat six of them two hours later at fifty cents each.

Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.

I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.

The fact that Americans drag around the world by the busloads to glimpse the past probably has something to do with the youth of our country. We revere anything older than George Burns.

Housework, if it is done properly, can cause brain damage.