Erma Bombeck

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

- Erma Bombeck

"When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' It is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway."

- Erma Bombeck

"Worry is like a rocking chair: It gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain loving one another."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

""No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.""

- Erma Bombeck

""There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it.""

- Erma Bombeck

"Adults can take a simple holiday for Children and screw it up. What began as a presentation of simple gifts to delight and surprise children around the Christmas tree has culminated in a woman unwrapping six shrimp forks from her dog, who drew her name."

- Erma Bombeck

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

- Erma Bombeck

"The average time for eating a Thanksgiving dinner is 12 minutes, which, incidentally, coincides with halftime."

- Erma Bombeck

"What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?"

- Erma Bombeck

"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it."

- Erma Bombeck

"Children make your life important."

- Erma Bombeck

"Sisters are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, ‘Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course, I’ve got dreams.’ Then they put the box away and bring it out once in a while to look in it, and yep, they’re still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, ‘How good or how bad am I?’ That’s where courage comes in."

- Erma Bombeck

"When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out."

- Erma Bombeck

"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart."

- Erma Bombeck

"My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be."

- Erma Bombeck

"The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again."

- Erma Bombeck

""Housework can kill you if done right.""

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

""I don't know why no one ever thought to paste a label on the toilet-tissue spindle giving 1-2-3 directions for replacing the tissue on it. Then everyone in the house would know what Mama knows.""

- Erma Bombeck

"Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After 22 years of child-raising, they are unemployed."

- Erma Bombeck

"Given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it … look at it and really see it … try it on … live it … exhaust it … and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it."

- Erma Bombeck

"Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway."

- Erma Bombeck

"When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ It’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out."

- Erma Bombeck

"Never have more children than you have car windows."

- Erma Bombeck

"In general, my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television."

- Erma Bombeck

"When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out."

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"Thanksgiving dinners take 18 hours to prepare. They are consumed in 12 minutes. Half-times take 12 minutes. This is not a coincidence."

- Erma Bombeck

"When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway."

- Erma Bombeck

""Thanksgiving dinners take 18 hours to prepare. They are consumed in 12 minutes. Half-times take 12 minutes. This is not a coincidence.""

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it6s a mere formality. It doesn6t matter if you answer yes or no. You6re going to get it anyway."

- Erma Bombeck

"What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?"

- Erma Bombeck

"Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence."

- Erma Bombeck

"Preschool enrich your life."

- Erma Bombeck

""Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.""

- Erma Bombeck

""All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.""

- Erma Bombeck

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

- Erma Bombeck

"My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance."

- Erma Bombeck