Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Erma Bombeck Writer

  • Gender: Female
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: Feb 21, 1927
  • Died: Apr 22, 1996

Erma Louise Bombeck was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s. Bombeck also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. From 1965 to 1996, Erma 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 twice-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

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

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

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

God created man, but I could do better.

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

Never have more children than you have car windows.

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

Never order food in excess of your body weight.

Children make your life important.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

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

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

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