Famous Women Quotes
The Best Erma Bombeck Quotes
Erma Bombeck quotes are funny, touching and right on the money. She talks on many different topics and below I have captured her best quotes on topics like, keeping house quotes, quotes on being a mother, quotes on marriage and men, quotes on family and a variety of other great quotes by Erma Bombeck.
Erma Bombeck Quotes
Erma Bombeck quotes about being a mother, children and parenting
All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with white carpet is one of them.
Mother’s words of wisdom: “Answer me! Don’t talk with food in your mouth!”
Who, in their infinite wisdom, decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.
Children make your life important.
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?”
It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.
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
My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.
When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out
It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows
Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, “A house guest,” you’re wrong because I have just described my kids.
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.
The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a other must have her children believe she has never engaged in sex, never made a bad decision, never caused her own mother a moment’s anxiety, and was never a child
Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.
Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-rearing, they are unemployed.
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: Checkout Time is 18 years.
Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids
Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth
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
I have never gone to the bathroom in my life that a small voice on the other side of the door hasn’t whined, “Are you saving the bananas for anything?”
I remember buying a set of black plastic dishes once, after I saw an ad on television where they actually put a blowtorch to them and they emerged unscathed. Exactly one week after I bought them, one of the kids brought a dinner plate to me with a large crack in it. When I asked what happened to it, he said it hit a tree. I don’t want to talk about it.
Kids have little computer bodies with disks that store information. They remember who had to do the dishes the last time you had spaghetti, who lost the knob off the Tv set six years ago, who got punished for teasing the dog when he wasn’t teasing the dog and who had to wear girls boots the last time it snowed.
Most children’s first words are “Mama” or “Daddy.” Mine were, “Do I have to use my own money?
Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.
Mothers have to remember what food each child likes or dislikes, which one is allergic to penicillin and hamster fur, who gets carsick and who isn’t kidding when he stands outside the bathroom door and tells you what’s going to happen if he doesn’t get in right away. It’s tough. If they all have the same hair color they tend to run together.
No self-respecting mother would run out of intimidations on the eve of a major holiday.
The age of your children is a key factor in how quickly you are served in a restaurant. We once had a waiter in Canada who said, “Could I get you your check?” and we answered, “How about the menu first?”
When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they’re not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They’re upset because they’ve gone from supervisor of a child’s life to a spectator. It’s like being the vice president of the United States.
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.
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.
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 quotes about being a mother and raising kids
Erma Bombeck quotes about keeping house
Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop offs at tedium and counter productivity.
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
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
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint
Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.
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
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.
My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one cares. Why should you?
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’s a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.
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’s a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.
Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity
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
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 quotes on keeping house
Erma bombeck quotes about marriage and men
Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
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.
Spend at least one Mother’s Day with your respective mothers before you decide on marriage. If a man gives his mother a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him.
For some of us, watching a miniseries that lasts longer than most marriages is not easy.
If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It’s the only thing “real” men do that doesn’t seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it’s on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
God created man, but I could do better
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.
One never realizes how different a husband and wife can be until they begin to pack for a trip
After twenty-two years of marriage, we had outgrown the challenge of making something out of nothing. The nesting instincts just weren’t there anymore. I no longer hyperventilated over a melon keeper that I bought at a Tupperware party. I now worshipped at the shrine of convenience and Sara Lee. Bill no longer rushed home to make bird houses in the basement. He wanted to sleep in his BarcaLounger so he wouldn’t be so tired when he went to bed. It was as if we were closing the door on the years of struggle. It wasn’t fun anymore
~ Erma Bombeck quotes about marriage and men
IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER, Erma Bombeck quotes about life
If I had my life to live over…
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
I would have talked less and listened more.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
I would have eaten the popcorn in the “good” living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather rambling about his youth.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have burned the pink candle sculped like a rose before it melted in storage.
I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more while watching life.
I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for the day.
I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn’t show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment, realising that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.”
There would have been more “I love you’s” and more “I’m sorry’s”
. . . but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute . . . look at it and really see it . . . and never give it back.”
~ Erma Bombeck quotes about life
Erma Bomecks quotes on family and friends
A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat.
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.
A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend – and he’s a priest.
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
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
You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren’t dying. They’re merging into big conglomerates.
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
I’ve never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying Open! was never a big deal, but holding that television tuner and realizing I alone control what is flashed on the screen brings out the Iacocca in me
~ Erma Bombeck quotes on Family
Funny Erma Bombeck quotes
I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
On vacations: We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the saltwater off our bodies and the sand out of our belongings.
Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.
The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again. Read more running sayings
There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
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.
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died
In two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet
When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies
I’ve exercised with women so thin, buzzards followed them to their cars
I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian
~ Funny Erma Bombeck quotes
read more funny sayings and quotes
Other great Erma Bombeck quotes
Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage
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
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
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
It’s frightening to wake up one morning and discover that while you were asleep you went out of style
Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It’s unbridled, it’s unplanned, it’s full of surprises.
Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It’s unbridled, its unplanned, it’s full of surprises
When you look like your passport photo, it’s time to go home
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
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
Read more thanksgiving sayings
A grandmother pretends she doesn’t know who you are on Halloween
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
Read more Halloween quotes
If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it
Christmas Shopping: Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find one gift that you didn’t have to dust, that had to be used right away, that was practical, fit everyone, was personal and would be remembered for a long time? I penciled in “Gift certificate for a flu shot
There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
~ Erma Bombeck quotes
Read more Christmas sayings
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.
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
I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt
Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what
Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere
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
How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?
Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip.
Sometimes I can’t figure designers out. It’s as if they flunked human anatomy.
Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
There’s a territorial ritual to an aerobics class. I entered a class for the first time a few years ago and ended up where no one wanted to be…in the front row next to the mirror. It was three years before I could work my way to the back row.
Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.
House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.
Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated
As a child, my number one best friend was the librarian in my grade school. I actually believed all those books belonged to her
Laugh now, cry later
“…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
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 quotes
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