Erma Bombeck Quotes
Erma Louise Bombeck was born on the 21st of February, 1927 in Bellbrook, Ohio, United States. She was an American humorist and writer who achieved great popularity from her syndicated newspaper humor column describing suburban home life.
Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns between 1965 and April 17, 1996, using broad and sometimes eloquent humor, chronicling the ordinary life of a midwestern suburban housewife. She also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. Erma Bombeck died on the 22nd of April, 1996 in UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, California, United States.
In this article, you will find a collection of famous Erma Bombeck quotes and sayings.
80 Erma Bombeck Quotes About Life, Happiness & Family
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.”― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“Written on her tombstone: “I told you I was sick.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“When you look like your passport photo, it’s time to go home.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“I’ve exercised with women so thin, buzzards followed them to their cars.”― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you. ” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Grandparenthood is one of life’s rewards for surviving your own children.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Families aren’t easy to join. They’re like an exclusive country club where membership makes impossible demands and the dues for an outsider are exorbitant.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Throughout the years I have set up my own rules about eating food: Never eat anything you can’t pronounce. Beware of food that is described as, “Some Americans say it tastes like chicken.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“A child needs your love most when he deserves it least” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“In two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“When humor goes, there goes civilization.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, ‘No thank you’ to desert that night. And for what?!” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“A grandmother pretends she doesn’t know who you are on Halloween.”― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It’s unbridled, its unplanned, it’s full of suprises.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Laugh now, cry later.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“I come from a home where gravy is a beverage.”― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.”― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“We’ve got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don’t know how it was before, so they think, this isn’t too bad. We’re working. We have our attache’ cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don’t realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“I want to teach you so much that you must know to find happiness within yourself. Yet I don’t know where to begin or how. I want you to be a square. That’s right, a square! I want you to kiss your grandmother when you walk into the room even if you’re with friends…I want you to lend dignity to the things you believe in and respect for the things you don’t believe in. I want you to be a human begin who needs friends, and in turn deserves them. I want you to be a square who polishes his shoes, buttons the top button of his shirt occasionally, and stands straight and looks people in the eye when they are talking to you. There is a time to laugh and a time to cry. I want you to know the difference.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Housework, if it is done properly, can cause brain damage.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Children Are Like Kites
You spend years trying to get them off the ground.
You run with them until you are both breathless. They crash … they hit the roof … you patch, comfort and assure them that someday they will fly.
Finally, they are airborne.
They need more string, and you keep letting it out.
They tug, and with each twist of the twine, there is sadness that goes with joy.
The kite becomes more distant, and you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you together and will soar as meant to soar … free and alone.
Only then do you know that you have done your job.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
You spend years trying to get them off the ground.
You run with them until you are both breathless. They crash … they hit the roof … you patch, comfort and assure them that someday they will fly.
Finally, they are airborne.
They need more string, and you keep letting it out.
They tug, and with each twist of the twine, there is sadness that goes with joy.
The kite becomes more distant, and you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you together and will soar as meant to soar … free and alone.
Only then do you know that you have done your job.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“It’s frightening to wake up one morning and discover that while you were asleep you went out of style.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“For from this day forward his world can only widen. An existence that began in a crib, grew to a house, and extends over a two-block bicycle ride will now go even beyond that. I will share him with another woman, other adults, other children, other opinions, other points of view. I am no longer leading. I am standing behind him ready to guide from a new position.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“There was a time when the one singular thing that held a marriage together was the threat of getting the kids.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“In all honesty, men changed a few rules when they became what was referred to as househusbands. Bill didn’t make beds, cook, dust, do laundry, windows or floors, or give birth. What he did do was pay bills, call people to fix the plumbing, handle the investments and taxes, volunteer big time, take papers to the garage, change license plates, get the cars serviced, and pick up the cleaning. If women had had that kind of schedule, who knows, we’d probably still be in the home.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“The other night he took me to dinner. We were having a wonderful time when he remarked, “You can certainly tell the wives from the sweethearts.”
I stopped licking the stream of butter dripping down my elbow and replied, “What kind of crack is that?” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
I stopped licking the stream of butter dripping down my elbow and replied, “What kind of crack is that?” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“I’ve always felt there are two things a woman should never do after the age of thirty-five: stand in natural light and have a baby…” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“You show me a boy who brings a snake home to his mother and I’ll show you an orphan.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it’s time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.”― Erma Bombeck Quote
“One never realizes how different a husband and wife can be until they begin to pack for a trip.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“…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 Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“Sometimes I can’t figure designers out. It’s as if they flunked human anatomy.” ― Erma Bombeck Quote
“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 Quote
“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 Quote
“I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food” ― Erma Bombeck Quote