There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
Erma Bombeck
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
Erma Bombeck
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
Erma Bombeck
Never have more children than you have car windows.
Erma Bombeck
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.
Erma Bombeck
A grandmother pretends she doesn’t know who you are on Halloween.
Erma Bombeck
I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
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 talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’.
Erma Bombeck
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.
Erma Bombeck
The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
Erma Bombeck
The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
Erma Bombeck
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
I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: ‘Checkout Time is 18 years.’
Erma Bombeck
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
Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.
Erma Bombeck
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
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
Erma Bombeck
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.
Erma Bombeck
There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.
Erma Bombeck
Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
Erma Bombeck
I have a theory about the human mind. A brain is a lot like a computer. It will only take so many facts, and then it will go on overload and blow up.
Erma Bombeck
Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?
Erma Bombeck
When humor goes, there goes civilization.
Erma Bombeck
If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
Erma Bombeck
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
Erma Bombeck
For some of us, watching a miniseries that lasts longer than most marriages is not easy.
Erma Bombeck
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.
Erma Bombeck
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
Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.
Erma Bombeck
Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
Erma Bombeck
If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.
Erma Bombeck
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
Erma Bombeck
Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.
Erma Bombeck
In two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
Erma Bombeck
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
Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.
Erma Bombeck
Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It’s too controversial.
Erma Bombeck
It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
Erma Bombeck
I’ve exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.
Erma Bombeck
Why would anyone steal a shopping cart? It’s like stealing a two-year-old.
Erma Bombeck
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.
Erma Bombeck
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.
Erma Bombeck
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
Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.
Erma Bombeck
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.
Erma Bombeck
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.
Erma Bombeck
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
Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.
Erma Bombeck
There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
Erma Bombeck
I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.
Erma Bombeck
House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad.
Erma Bombeck
Never accept a drink from a urologist.
Erma Bombeck
How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?
Erma Bombeck
