Erma Louise Bombeck (February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996) was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper humor column describing suburban home life, syndicated from 1965 to 1996. She also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers.
Between 1965 and April 17, 1996 – five days before her death – Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, using broad and sometimes eloquent humor, chronicling the ordinary life of a Midwestern suburban housewife. By the 1970s, her columns were read semi-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. Her work stands as a humorous chronicle of middle-class life in America after World War II, among the generation of parents who produced the Baby Boomers.
Erma Bombeck Quotes
1. “It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”
— Erma Bombeck
2. “Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”
— Erma Bombeck
3. “Kids need love the most when they’re acting most unlovable.”
— Erma Bombeck
4. “Pregnancy is the only time in a woman’s life she can help God work a miracle.”
— Erma Bombeck
5. “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.”
— Erma Bombeck
6. “A child needs your love most when he deserves it least.”
— Erma Bombeck
7. “There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”
— Erma Bombeck
8. “Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain love for one another.”
— Erma Bombeck
9. “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?”
— Erma Bombeck
10. “If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.”
— Erma Bombeck
11. “I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food.”
— Erma Bombeck
12. “When you look like your passport photo, it’s time to go home.”
— Erma Bombeck
13. “If I had my life to live over I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.”
— Erma Bombeck
14. “The grass is always greener over the septic tank.”
— Erma Bombeck
15. “Some emotions don’t make a lot of noise. It’s hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint – like a heartbeat. And pure love – why, some days it’s so quiet, you don’t even know it’s there…”
— Erma Bombeck
16. “Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn’t even in the same neighborhood.”
— Erma Bombeck
17. “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.”
— Erma Bombeck
18. “My sister and I never engaged in sibling rivalry. Our parents weren’t that crazy about either one of us.”
— Erma Bombeck
19. “Time. It hangs heavy for the bored, eludes the busy, flies by the for young, and runs out for the aged.”
— Erma Bombeck
20. “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
21. “Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”
— Erma Bombeck
22. “Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.”
— Erma Bombeck
23. “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
24. “Never accept a drink from a urologist.”
— Erma Bombeck
25. “Cleaning the house while the children are home is like shoveling while it’s still snowing.”
— Erma Bombeck
26. “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
27. “Children make your life important.”
— Erma Bombeck
28. “Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what.”
— Erma Bombeck
29. “As a graduate of the Zsa Zsa Gabor School of Creative Mathematics, I honestly do not know how old I am.”
— Erma Bombeck
30. “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
31. “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
32. “A member of the committee slapped a name tag over my left bosom. “What shall we name the other one?” I smiled. She was not amused.”
— Erma Bombeck
33. “If the nest is truly empty, who owns all this junk?”
— Erma Bombeck
34. “When humor goes, there go’s civilization.”
— Erma Bombeck
35. “Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.”
— Erma Bombeck
36. “I used everything you gave me.”
— Erma Bombeck
37. “Let me put it this way. According to my girth, I should be a ninety-foot redwood.”
— Erma Bombeck
38. “With boys, you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane.”
— Erma Bombeck
39. “No One Diets on Thanksgiving.”
— Erma Bombeck
40. “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
41. “Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.”
— Erma Bombeck
42. “Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.”
— Erma Bombeck
43. “When you’re lecturing teenagers and they begin to hum and leave the room, you can sense there is hostility.”
— Erma Bombeck
44. “The term ‘working mother’ is redundant.”
— Erma Bombeck
45. “When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.”
— Erma Bombeck
46. “When children reach the age of sixteen, they discover the meaning of life: car keys.”
— Erma Bombeck
47. “Women are never what they seem to be. There is the woman you see and there is the woman who is hidden. Buy the gift for the woman who is hidden.”
— Erma Bombeck
48. “If I raised my hand to wipe the hair out of my children’s eyes, they’d flinch and call their attorney.”
— Erma Bombeck
49. “Encourage independence in your children by regularly losing them in the supermarket.”
— Erma Bombeck
50. “It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.”
— Erma Bombeck
51. “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 as quoted in A Christmas Blessing.”
— Erma Bombeck
52. “There is so much to teach, and the time goes so fast.”
— Erma Bombeck
53. “I’ve exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.”
— Erma Bombeck
54. “If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished ever moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.”
— Erma Bombeck
55. “Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.”
— Erma Bombeck
56. “She’s as funny as a toothache.”
— Erma Bombeck
57. “I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”
— Erma Bombeck
58. “Housework can kill you if done right.”
— Erma Bombeck
59. “There was a time when the respect and trust my children had for me would have made you sick to your stomach. They believed I could blow on a red traffic light and turn it green.”
— Erma Bombeck
60. “For years, my husband and I have advocated separate vacations. But the kids keep finding us.”
— Erma Bombeck
61. “When it comes to cooking, five years ago I felt guilty “just adding water.” Now I want to bang the tube against the countertop and have a five-course meal pop out. If it comes with plastic silverware and a plate that self-destructs, all the better.”
— Erma Bombeck
62. “I have a friend who lives by a three-word philosophy: Seize the Moment. Just possibly, she may be the wisest woman on this planet.”
— Erma Bombeck
63. “Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids.”
— Erma Bombeck
64. “Cats invented self-esteem; there is not an insecure bone in their body.”
— Erma Bombeck
65. “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
66. “Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?”
— Erma Bombeck
67. “When you’re an orthodox worrier, some days are worse than others.”
— Erma Bombeck
68. “When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies.”
— Erma Bombeck
69. “I read one psychologist’s theory that said, “Never strike a child in your anger.” When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he’s recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday?”
— Erma Bombeck
70. “My mother won’t admit it, but I’ve always been a disappointment to her. Deep down inside, she’ll never forgive herself for giving birth to a daughter who refuses to launder aluminum foil and use it over again.”
— Erma Bombeck
71. “The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.”
— Erma Bombeck
72. “Mother’s words of wisdom: Answer me! Don’t talk with food in your mouth!”
— Erma Bombeck
73. “Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not a coincidence.”
— Erma Bombeck
74. “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
75. “I never go to a college reunion that I don’t come away feeling sorry for all those paunchy, balding jocks trying to hang onto youth. I feel sorry for the men, too.”
— Erma Bombeck
76. “Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted. Every evening they disappear. Most parents never imagine how hard they try to please us, and how miserable they feel when they think they have failed.”
— Erma Bombeck
77. “Every puppy should have a boy.”
— Erma Bombeck
78. “Hello there. I’m out social climbing, but if you leave your name and number and if you’re anybody, I’ll get back to you.”
— Erma Bombeck
79. “It is my theory you can’t get rid of fat. All you can do is move it around, like furniture.”
— Erma Bombeck
80. “Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity.”
— Erma Bombeck
81. “Why would anyone steal a shopping cart? It’s like stealing a two-year-old.”
— Erma Bombeck
82. “I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security, and too tired for an affair.”
— Erma Bombeck
83. “The bad times I can handle. It’s the good times that drive me crazy. When is the other shoe going to drop?”
— Erma Bombeck
84. “Most children’s first words are ‘Mama’ or ‘Daddy.’ Mine were, ‘Do I have to use my own money?’”
— Erma Bombeck
85. “Once you see the drivers in Indonesia you understand why religion plays such a part in their lives.”
— Erma Bombeck
86. “Before we sent kids to computer camps and told them they were having a good time, there was imagination among the human species.”
— Erma Bombeck
87. “Poached eggs are good, poached animals are not.”
— Erma Bombeck
88. “Next to hot chicken soup, a tattoo of an anchor on your chest, and penicillin, I consider a honeymoon one of the most overrated events in the world.”
— Erma Bombeck
89. “Grandparenthood is one of life’s rewards for surviving your own children.”
— Erma Bombeck
90. “Never underestimate what it takes to watch someone you love in pain.”
— Erma Bombeck
91. “In two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.”
— Erma Bombeck
92. “I just clipped 2 articles from a current magazine. One is a diet guaranteed to drop 5 pounds off my body in a weekend. The other is a recipe for a 6 minute pecan pie.”
— Erma Bombeck
93. “Let us hope manufacturers can come up with a diaper that is environmentally sound. To go back to cloth would send us back to the day when breathing and raising a baby at the same time were incompatible.”
— Erma Bombeck
94. “What’s with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?”
— Erma Bombeck
95. “Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It’s too controversial.”
— Erma Bombeck
96. “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
97. “Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted.”
— Erma Bombeck
98. “The woman who says, ‘My kids are all speaking to one another and they love us’ is a psychopathic liar.”
— Erma Bombeck
99. “My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.”
— Erma Bombeck
100. “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
101. “I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be.”
— Erma Bombeck
102. “My son would walk to the refrigerator-freezer and fling both doors open and stand there until the hairs in his nose iced up. After surveying $200 worth of food in varying shapes and forms, he would declare loudly, ‘There’s nothing to eat!’”
— Erma Bombeck
103. “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?””
— Erma Bombeck
104. “One meal a day is enough for a lion and would be for all of us if all we did all day was swat flies.”
— Erma Bombeck
105. “Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, ‘No thank you’ to desert that night. And for what?!”
— Erma Bombeck
106. “You become about as exciting as your food blender. The kids come in, look you in the eye, and ask if anybody’s home.”
— Erma Bombeck
107. “Grandma told me Mama was once caught by the Principal for writing in the front of her book, “In Case of Fire, Throw This in First.” I have never had so much respect for Mama as the day I heard this.”
— Erma Bombeck
108. “How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?”
— Erma Bombeck
109. “Having a delivery covered by Medicare just isn’t going to fly. It’s too risky for a woman to put a baby down and not remember where she left it.”
— Erma Bombeck
110. “No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed.
— Erma Bombeck
111. “I have just come up with a wonderful solution to end all wars. Let me give directions on how to get there.”
— Erma Bombeck
112. “A grandparent will help you with your buttons, your zippers, and your shoelaces and not be in any hurry for you to grow up.”
— Erma Bombeck
113. “I didn’t fear old age. I was just becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the only people who said old age was beautiful were usually twenty-three years old.”
— Erma Bombeck
114. “With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.”
— Erma Bombeck
115. “I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.”
— Erma Bombeck
116. “I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.”
— Erma Bombeck
117. “My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.”
— Erma Bombeck
118. “After age twelve, birthdays should be as private as hernia surgery.”
— Erma Bombeck
119. “Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.”
— Erma Bombeck
120. “Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip.”
— Erma Bombeck
121. “You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren’t dying. They’re merging into big conglomerates.”
— Erma Bombeck
122. “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.”
— Erma Bombeck
123. “The fact was I didn’t want to look my age, but I didn’t want to act the age I wanted to look either. I also wanted to grow old enough to understand that sentence.”
— Erma Bombeck
124. “Laugh now, cry later.”
— Erma Bombeck
125. “Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.”
— Erma Bombeck
