Quotes by Erma Bombeck

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“Never have more children than you have car windows.”

“Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.”

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

“My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.”

“Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.”

“It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.”

“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”

“All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.”

“I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and give 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.”

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

“A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.”

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

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”

“Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.”

“Never order food in excess of your body weight.”

“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'.”

“God created man, but I could do better.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“When humor goes, there goes civilization.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Children make your life important.”

“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one Helen Keller is the other.”

“I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: 'Checkout Time is 18 years.'”

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

“Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.”

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

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