Erma Bombeck Quotes

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

“Early in my life I had made a pact with myself. I would never eat anything that moved when I cooked it, excited the dog, or inflated upon impact with my teeth.”

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

“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.”

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

“I do not participate in any sport with ambulances at the bottom of the hill.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“... 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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”