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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

Children make your life important.

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

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

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

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

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

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

Never have more children than you have car windows.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

God created man, but I could do better.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

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

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

Never order food in excess of your body weight.

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

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

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