Delightful and Funny Erma Bombeck Quotes

Erma Louise Bombeck (February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996), was born Erma Fiste. She's the beloved American humorist whose newspaper column, At Wit's End grew to such popularity that it became nationally syndicated in 1965.

Run through her quotes and you'll be tickled pink. I adore many of her quotes and I believe you will too. Most of these quotes are about her making self-deprecating tales about the life of a housewife.

If you are a mother or a parent, you'll probably find good humor in her quotes. Enjoy these Erma Bombeck quotes!

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you.
-- Erma Bombeck

Christmas Shopping: Wouldn't it be wonderful to find one gift that you didn't have to dust, that had to be used right away, that was practical, fit everyone, was personal and would be remembered for a long time? I penciled in "Gift certificate for a flu shot."
-- Erma Bombeck

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

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.
-- Erma Bombeck

Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born.
-- Erma Bombeck

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

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

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

How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?
-- 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

I have never gone to the bathroom in my life that a small voice on the other side of the door hasn't whined, "Are you saving the bananas for anything?"
-- Erma Bombeck

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

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

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

Kids have little computer bodies with disks that store information. They remember who had to do the dishes the last time you had spaghetti, who lost the knob off the Tv set six years ago, who got punished for teasing the dog when he wasn't teasing the dog and who had to wear girls boots the last time it snowed.
-- Erma Bombeck

Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
-- Erma Bombeck

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

Most children's first words are "Mama" or "Daddy." Mine were, "Do I have to use my own money?"
-- Erma Bombeck

Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.
-- Erma Bombeck

Mothers have to remember what food each child likes or dislikes, which one is allergic to penicillin and hamster fur, who gets carsick and who isn't kidding when he stands outside the bathroom door and tells you what's going to happen if he doesn't get in right away. It's tough. If they all have the same hair color they tend to run together.
-- Erma Bombeck

Mother's words of wisdom: "Answer me! Don't talk with food in your mouth!"
-- Erma Bombeck

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

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

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

No self-respecting mother would run out of intimidations on the eve of a major holiday.
-- Erma Bombeck

On vacations: We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the saltwater off our bodies and the sand out of our belongings.
-- Erma Bombeck

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

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

Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.
-- Erma Bombeck

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

Spend at least one Mother's Day with your respective mothers before you decide on marriage. If a man gives his mother a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him.
-- Erma Bombeck

The age of your children is a key factor in how quickly you a re served in a restaurant. We once had a waiter in Canada who said, "Could I get you your check?" and we answered, "How about the menu first?"
-- Erma Bombeck

The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again.
-- Erma Bombeck

There's a territorial ritual to an aerobics class. I entered a class for the first time a few years ago and ended up where no one wanted to be...in the front row next to the mirror. It was three years before I could work my way to the back row.
-- Erma Bombeck

There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.
-- Erma Bombeck

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

When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States.
-- 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

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

Why is it when you want a nice souvenir, you find a great shell in a gift shop, but some yo-yo has affixed a ten-cent thermometer to it?
-- Erma Bombeck

Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.
-- Erma Bombeck

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