ERMA BOMBECK QUOTES II

American humorist (1927-1996)

In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes


Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, The Official Mom Book


I question the value of name tags as an aid to future identification. I have approached too many people who have spent the entire evening talking to my left bosom. I always have the insane desire to name the other one.

ERMA BOMBECK

I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression


Friends are "annuals" that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a "perennial" that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There's a place in the garden for both of them.

ERMA BOMBECK

Family: The Ties that Bind ... And Gag!


Grandmas defy description. They really do. They occupy such a unique place in the life of a child. They can shed the yoke of responsibility, relax, and enjoy their grandchildren in a way that was not possible when they were raising their own children. And they can glow in the realization that here is their seed of life that will harvest generations to come.

ERMA BOMBECK

At Wit's End


The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, Women Know Everything!


Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, Spent: Exposing Our Complicated Relationship with Shopping


There is a rumor that seven states are considering overpruning as a cause for divorce, second only to incompatibility and adultery. I hope our state is one of them. No judge would dare deny me freedom after he heard the story of my privet hedge.

ERMA BOMBECK

Forever, Erma


In retrospect, it was only a matter of time before the Family Dinner passed into history and fast foods took over. I knew its days were numbered the day our youngest propped my mouth open with a fork and yelled into it, "I want a cheeseburger and two fries and get it right this time." I just didn't serve meals with show business pizzazz.

ERMA BOMBECK

Family: The Ties that Bind--and Gag!


I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes


Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, The Mammoth Book of Zingers


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

ERMA BOMBECK

I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression


I've got to bring out the big ammunition on sex education. The bra and girdle section of Sears just isn't doing it.

ERMA BOMBECK

Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own!


Don't tell me about the scientific advances of the twentieth century. So men are planning a trip to the moon. So computers run every large industry in America. So body organs are being transplanted like perennials. Big deal! You show me a washer that will launder a pair of socks and return them to you as a pair, and I'll light a firecracker.

ERMA BOMBECK

Forever, Erma


The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

ERMA BOMBECK

The Family: The Ties that Bind--and Gag!


I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62 percent of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes


I am not a glutton -- I am an explorer of food.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women


Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Right Words for Any Occasion


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

ERMA BOMBECK

Forever, Erma


I remember thinking how often we look, but never see ... we listen, but never hear ... we exist, but never feel. We take our relationships for granted. A house is only a place. It has no life of its own. It needs human voices, activity and laughter to come alive.

ERMA BOMBECK

A Marriage Made In Heaven; or, Too Tired For an Affair