Erma Bombeck Quotes

110 Sourced Quotes

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 firmly believe kids don't want your understanding. They want your trust, your compassion, your blinding love and your car keys, but you try to understand them and you're in big trouble.

Erma Bombeck
He opened the jar of pickles when no one else could. He was the only one in the house who wasn't afraid to go into the basement by himself. He cut himself shaving, but no one kissed it or got excited about it. It was understood when it rained, he got the car and brought it around to the door. When anyone was sick, he went out to get the prescription filled. He took lots of pictures... but he was never in them.

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
A fitting room to me has always been like a confessional... where my body and my contrition take up the entire room.

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
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.

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
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
To my way of thinking, the American family started to decline when parents began to communicate with their children. When we began to 'rap,' 'feed into one another,' 'let things hang out' that mother didn't know about and would rather not.

Erma Bombeck
I come from a home where gravy is a beverage.

Erma Bombeck
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
It is difficult to single out one sport over another, but if I have to name one in my separation suit, it will undoubtedly be football.

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
I do not participate in any sport with ambulances at the bottom of the hill.

Erma Bombeck
I will never understand children. I never pretended to. I meet mothers all the time who make resolutions to themselves. 'I'm going to... go out of my way to show them I am interested in them and what they do. I am going to understand my children.' These women end up making rag rugs, using blunt scissors.

Erma Bombeck
Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience.

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
When the history of guilt is written, parents who refuse their children money will be right up there in the Top Ten.

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

Erma Bombeck