American humorist (1927-1996)
Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity.
ERMA BOMBECK
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Zingers
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
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
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
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
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
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!
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!
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!
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
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!
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
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 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
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 am not a glutton -- I am an explorer of food.
ERMA BOMBECK
attributed, Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women
I've exercised with women so thin, buzzards followed them to their cars.
ERMA BOMBECK
Forever, Erma
Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
ERMA BOMBECK
Family: The Ties that Bind ... And Gag!