Erma Bombeck Quotes

“Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.”

“I didn't fear old age. I was just becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the only people who said old age was beautiful were usually twenty-three years old.”

“I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.”

“Many people are intimidated by doctors. ... People also feel stupid when they don't understand what a doctor's talking about the first time around, so they don't ask again. And let's be honest here, people. English is not a doctor's first language.”

“When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies.”

“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.”

“People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you'll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow.”

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

“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.”

“I worry about scientists discovering that lettuce has been fattening all along.”

“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?”

“It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line.”

“Before we sent kids to computer camps and told them they were having a good time, there was imagination among the human species.”

“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.”

“Mother's words of wisdom: Answer me! Don't talk with food in your mouth!”

“He who laughs.....lasts.”

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

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

“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.”

“Cats invented self-esteem.”

“I will never understand children. I never pretended to. I meet mothers all the time who make resolutions to themselves. 'I'm going to ... go out of my way to show them I am interested in them and what they do. I am going to understand my children.' These women end up making rag rugs, using blunt scissors.”

“To say, "Well, I write when I really get into it" is a bunch of bull. Put the paper in the typewriter, stare at it a long time, get snowblindness if you have to, but write something.”

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

“Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.”

“Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.”