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 come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.

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

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

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

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

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.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

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

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

Never have more children than you have car windows.

Children make your life important.

Never order food in excess of your body weight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

God created man, but I could do better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.