More Erma Bombeck

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

I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a s...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn'...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people's children and publicly ad...
ERMA BOMBECK

Children make your life important.
ERMA BOMBECK

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: 'Checkout...
ERMA BOMBECK

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrige...
ERMA BOMBECK

In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
ERMA BOMBECK

When God Created Mothers"

When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth ...
ERMA BOMBECK

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of ta...
ERMA BOMBECK

Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

But doctor, where is the umbilical cord? New technology, it's wireless.
ERMA BOMBECK

When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.
ERMA BOMBECK

Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do 'practice' ?
ERMA BOMBECK

You already know something you don't even know that you know.
ERMA BOMBECK

Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popula...
ERMA BOMBECK

God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.
ERMA BOMBECK

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
ERMA BOMBECK

How does a doctor feel when he loses a patient in the emergency room? The same way a child feels wh...
ERMA BOMBECK

I finally found a doctor with a lot of patients, and he didn't have any patience to listen to me.
ERMA BOMBECK

What did my doctor tell me when I rushed into his office and told him I have 40 seconds to live? Hol...
ERMA BOMBECK

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
ERMA BOMBECK

There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times...
ERMA BOMBECK

What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when...
ERMA BOMBECK

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of ta...
ERMA BOMBECK

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: Checkout Time...
ERMA BOMBECK

I'm trying very hard to understand this generation. They have adjusted the timetable for childbearin...
ERMA BOMBECK

My type of humor is almost pure identification. A housewife reads my column and says, 'But that's ha...
ERMA BOMBECK

We've got a generation now who were born with semi equality. They don't know how it was before, so t...
ERMA BOMBECK

Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned,...
ERMA BOMBECK

If God had meant us to walk around naked, he would never have invented the wicker chair.
ERMA BOMBECK

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
ERMA BOMBECK

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed un...
ERMA BOMBECK

Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity...
ERMA BOMBECK

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the refrigera...
ERMA BOMBECK

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
ERMA BOMBECK

When God was creating fathers, He started with a tall frame. An angel nearby said, What kind of fath...
ERMA BOMBECK

You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're mergi...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Never accept a drink from a Urologist.
ERMA BOMBECK

I am not a glutton -- I am an explorer of food.
ERMA BOMBECK

It seemed rather incongruous that in a society of supersophisticated communication, we often suffer ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It's literary suicide.
ERMA BOMBECK

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else. -Erma Bombeck.
ERMA BOMBECK

Anybody who watches three games of football in a row should be declared brain dead.
ERMA BOMBECK

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding...
ERMA BOMBECK

Skiing: I do not participate in any sport with ambulances at the bottom of the hill
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contempora...
ERMA BOMBECK

No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their...
ERMA BOMBECK

It seemed rather incongruous that in a society of supersophisticated communication, we often suffe...
ERMA BOMBECK

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
ERMA BOMBECK

By the age of six the average child will have completed the basic American education.... From televi...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

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

Vacation is what you take when you can't take what you've been taking any longer.
ERMA BOMBECK

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of ta...
ERMA BOMBECK

Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Great dreams... never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dream...
ERMA BOMBECK

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of ...
ERMA BOMBECK

I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I...
ERMA BOMBECK

For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my hu...
ERMA BOMBECK

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It&#...
ERMA BOMBECK

The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
ERMA BOMBECK

Never have more children than you have car windows.
ERMA BOMBECK

Someone once threw me a small, brown, hairy kiwi fruit, and I threw a wastebasket over it until it w...
ERMA BOMBECK

Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gift...
ERMA BOMBECK

Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you...
ERMA BOMBECK

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of ta...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

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

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

I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and give me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a st...
ERMA BOMBECK

People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same...
ERMA BOMBECK

On vacations: We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the s...
ERMA BOMBECK

Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.
ERMA BOMBECK

Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog ...
ERMA BOMBECK

My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are u...
ERMA BOMBECK

When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishe...
ERMA BOMBECK

Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you.
ERMA BOMBECK

A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend-and he's a priest.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, No, thank you, to dessert that night. And for...
ERMA BOMBECK

Next to hot chicken soup, a tattoo of an anchor on your chest, and penicillin, I consider a honeymoo...
ERMA BOMBECK

All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white...
ERMA BOMBECK

Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians ...
ERMA BOMBECK

When humor goes, there goes civilization.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

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

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows
ERMA BOMBECK

I was leafing through a magazine where there was a before-and-after picture of a woman who went from...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

God created man, but I could do better.
ERMA BOMBECK

House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got ...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
ERMA BOMBECK

I have a theory about the human mind. A brain is a lot like a computer. It will only take so many fa...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, 'No thank you' to desert that night. And for ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It's literary suicide.
ERMA BOMBECK

When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if ...
ERMA BOMBECK

I've exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.
ERMA BOMBECK

If I had my life to live over...

Someone asked me the other day if I had my life t...
ERMA BOMBECK

There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after s...
ERMA BOMBECK

When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if...
ERMA BOMBECK

I worry about scientists discovering that lettuce has been fattening all along. . . .
ERMA BOMBECK

Dreams have but one owner at a time. That is why dreamers are lonely.
ERMA BOMBECK

Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted. Every evening they disappear. Most parents nev...
ERMA BOMBECK

When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.
ERMA BOMBECK

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've nev...
ERMA BOMBECK

The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with ONLY a loaf of bread are thre...
ERMA BOMBECK

In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn't danced on television.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

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

I've been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789 pounds. BY all accou...
ERMA BOMBECK

Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, "No, thank you," to dessert that night. And f...
ERMA BOMBECK

Never order food in excess of your body weight.
ERMA BOMBECK

The bad times I can handle. It's the good times that drive me crazy. When is the other shoe going to...
ERMA BOMBECK

No self-respecting mother would run out of intimidations on the eve of a major holiday.
ERMA BOMBECK

It is fast approaching the point where I don't want to elect anyone stupid enough to want the job.
ERMA BOMBECK

As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Phrases and their actual meanings: "My teacher has never liked me." Expect a phone call before lunch...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

You become about as exciting as your food blender. The kids come in, look you in the eye, and ask if...
ERMA BOMBECK

Have you any idea how many kids it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen? Three. It takes one t...
ERMA BOMBECK

Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You're not out of it until the...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

I don't know why no one ever thought to paste a label on the toilet-tissue spindle giving 1-2-3 dire...
ERMA BOMBECK

Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten...
ERMA BOMBECK

Housework can kill you if done right.
ERMA BOMBECK

I was going to have inner peace if I had to break a few heads to do it.
ERMA BOMBECK

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerato...
ERMA BOMBECK

Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishe...
ERMA BOMBECK

It is ludicrous to read the microwave direction on the boxes of food you buy, as each one will have ...
ERMA BOMBECK

The grass is always greener over the septic tank.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

A child develops individuality long before he develops taste. I have seen my kid straggle into the k...
ERMA BOMBECK

A child develops individuality long before he discovers taste
ERMA BOMBECK

Housework can kill you if done right
ERMA BOMBECK

People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same...
ERMA BOMBECK

I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: ''Checkout Ti...
ERMA BOMBECK

What's with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?
ERMA BOMBECK

The age of your children is a key factor in how quickly you are served in a restaurant. We once had ...
ERMA BOMBECK

If life is a bowl of cherries, then what am I doing in the pits?
ERMA BOMBECK

There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's...
ERMA BOMBECK

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.
ERMA BOMBECK

The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Everyone is guilty at one time or another of throwing out questions that beg to be ignored, but moth...
ERMA BOMBECK

I've never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying "Open!"...
ERMA BOMBECK

Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work...
ERMA BOMBECK

Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, it's unplanned...
ERMA BOMBECK

At some point in your life if you're lucky you throw practicality to the wind and start living.
ERMA BOMBECK

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, "Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've...
ERMA BOMBECK

Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that ...
ERMA BOMBECK

For years [my wedding ring] has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.
ERMA BOMBECK

Girls mature faster than boys, cost more to raise, and statistics show that the old saw about girls ...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You're not out of it until...
ERMA BOMBECK

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

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of ...
ERMA BOMBECK

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you.
ERMA BOMBECK

There is one thing I have never taught my body how to do and that is to figure out at 6 A.M. what it...
ERMA BOMBECK

I've exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.
ERMA BOMBECK

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

How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?
ERMA BOMBECK

What's with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?
ERMA BOMBECK

Never let anyone treat you like regular glue. You're glitter glue.
ERMA BOMBECK

As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all...
ERMA BOMBECK You couldn't get me on Mars if it were the last place on earth.
ERMA COHEN Companions were not allowed to lie. I don’t know why. I had tried a few times when I was young to ...
ERMA I TALAMANTE

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

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Erma Bombeck

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

Erma Bombeck

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