Erma Bombeck Quotes
Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Housework can’t kill you, but why take a chance?
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
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.’
Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your children.
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.
When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
If you can laugh at it, you can live with it.
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.
Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?
If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.
Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
In general, my children refused to eat anything that hadn’t danced on TV.
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.
I’ve exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.
I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
A man who wants to make a relationship work will move mountains to keep the woman he loves happy.
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th, 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.
Someone asked me why women don’t gamble as much as men do, and I gave the commonsensical reply that we don’t have as much money. That was a true but incomplete answer. In fact, women’s total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.
I haven’t trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I’ve never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.
Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You’re not out of it until the computer says you’re out of it.
Never have more children than you have car windows.
I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and gives me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it.
In two decades, I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.
I married him for better or worse, but not for lunch.
People who tell you that the customer is always right seldom have to deal with customers.
Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving.
Everything I know about life, I learned from animals. Hold your squirmy wormy, give your wet dog a kiss. If you can do that, love can do anything.
There really is a God. I know because I’ve had her on the phone.
I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security, and too tired for an affair.
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat.
The grass is always greener over the septic tank.
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.
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths.
The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
Houseplants are the most fascinating pornography and gossip of all.
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.
If you’re looking for a champion in your corner, then you should start with a child.
What’s for dinner is the most difficult question in the world. The answer is so complex. I can’t be the only one who goes through this every night, standing in front of pantry shelves or looking into an empty fridge, trying to decide between spaghetti or tacos or steak or the only two vegetables you have left, one of which everyone hates?.
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
When humor goes, there goes civilization.