My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one cares. Why should you?
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
Quotations by:
Bombeck, Erma
I just clipped 2 articles from a current magazine. One is a diet guaranteed to drop 5 pounds off my body in a weekend. The other is a recipe for a 6 minute pecan pie.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
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’s a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
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 (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a Sears battery.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
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 (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you’ll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
I remember buying a set of black plastic dishes once, after I saw an ad on television where they actually put a blowtorch to them and they emerged unscathed. Exactly one week after I bought them, one of the kids brought a dinner plate to me with a large crack in it. When I asked what happened to it, he said it hit a tree. I don’t want to talk about it.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
Have you any idea how many children it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen? Three. It takes one to say, “What light?” and two more to say, “I didn’t turn it on.”
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
Everyone is guilty at one time or another of throwing out questions that beg to be ignored, but mothers seem to have a market on the supply. “Do you want a spanking or do you want to go to bed?” Don’t you want to save some of the pizza for your brother?” Wasn’t there any change?”
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
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 (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession, ch. 21 (1983)
I was a closet pacifier advocate. So were most of my friends. Unknown to our mothers, we owned thirty or forty of those little suckers that were placed strategically around the house so a cry could be silenced in less than thirty seconds. Even though bottles were boiled, rooms disinfected, and germs fought one on one, no one seemed to care where the pacifier had been.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession, ch. 7 (1983)
Kids are without a doubt the most suspicious diners in the world. They will eat mud (raw or baked) rocks, paste, crayons, ball-point pens, moving goldfish, cigarette butts, and cat food. Try to coax a little beef stew into their mouths and they look at you like a puppy when you stand over him with the Sunday paper rolled up.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, ch. 30 (1983)
Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It’s literary suicide.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
Quoted in The Detroit Free Press (10 Aug 1978)