Erma Bombeck Quotes

110 Sourced Quotes

Motherhood isn't just a series of contractions; it's a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel a responsibility to protect and defend that human being.

Erma Bombeck
Time. It hangs heavy for the bored, eludes the busy, flies by the for young, and runs out for the aged.

Erma Bombeck
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.

Erma Bombeck
In general they [my children] refused to eat anything that hadn't danced on TV.

Erma Bombeck
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
Some say the antique syndrome surfaced to offset the newness of the land, the homes, and the settlers. Some say the interest was initiated by a desire to return to the roots of yesterday. I contend the entire movement to acquire antiques was born out of sheer respect of things that lasted longer than fifteen minutes.

Erma Bombeck
Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people's children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.

Erma Bombeck
The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a mother 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.

Erma Bombeck
Explain to me how he [her son] can ride a bicycle, run, play ball, set up a camp, swing, fight a war, swim and race for eight hours... and has to be driven to the garbage can.

Erma Bombeck
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
Let me lay it on you, Cleavie, the high spot in my day is taking knots out of shoestrings — with my teeth — that a kid has wet on all day long.

Erma Bombeck
People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman.

Erma Bombeck
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.

Erma Bombeck
For some unexplained reason, it's always the other end of the table that's wild and raucous, with screaming laughter and a fella who plays 'Holiday for Strings' on water glasses.

Erma Bombeck
Any mother with half a skull knows that when Daddy's little boy becomes Mommy's little boy, the kid is so wet he's treading water.

Erma Bombeck
I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

Erma Bombeck
In the South Pacific, because of their size, mosquitoes are required to file flight plans.

Erma Bombeck
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.

Erma Bombeck
I became hysterical and frightened and begged for sedation. And that was just the first prenatal visit.

Erma Bombeck
Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how.

Erma Bombeck
Men who have a thirty-six-televised-football-games-a-week habit should be declared legally dead and their estates probated.

Erma Bombeck
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
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
Occasionally, once a speaker is on his feet, it is difficult to get him to sit down.... If and when he returns to earth, he notices half of the room is paging the other half and a few are playing with the melted candles.

Erma Bombeck
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
I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night.

Erma Bombeck
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
There is one thing I have never taught my body how to do and that is to figure out at 6 A.M. what it wants to eat at 6 P.M.

Erma Bombeck
A child develops individuality long before he develops taste. I have seen my kid straggle into the kitchen in the morning with outfits that need only one accessory: an empty gin bottle.

Erma Bombeck
I never like to make generalities about people, but let's face it: People who love fruitcakes are 'different.'

Erma Bombeck