Erma Bombeck
Time. It hangs heavy for the bored, eludes the busy, flies by the for young, and runs out for the aged.Collection: Running
If the nest is truly empty, who owns all this junk?Collection: Junk
Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation's compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain love for one another.Collection: 4th Of July
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.Collection: Laughter
When humor go's, there go's civilization.Collection: Civilization
Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned, it's full of suprises.Collection: Wonderful
Housework, if it is done properly, can cause brain damage.Collection: Brain
I read one psychologist's theory that said, "Never strike a child in your anger." When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday?Collection: Family
It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have...One pair that see through closed doors. Another in the back of her head...and, of course, the ones in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and reflect 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word.Collection: Mom
The term 'working mother' is redundant.Collection: Mother
For some unexplained reason, it's always the other end of the table that's wild and raucous, with screaming laughter and a fella who plays 'Holiday for Strings' on water glasses.Collection: Laughter
I have paid as much as $300 a night to throw up into a sink shaped like a seashell.Collection: Travel
No One Diets on Thanksgiving.Collection: Funny Thanksgiving
Phrases and their actual meanings: My teacher has never liked me. Expect a phone call before lunch from the teacher informing you that your child has been launching hot dogs by compressing them inside a small Thermos and then removing the lid quickly.Collection: Dog
To my way of thinking, the American family started to decline when parents began to communicate with their children.Collection: Family
Why take pride in cooking, when they don't take pride in eating?Collection: Pride
Do I have to use my own money?Collection: Use
It is fast approaching the point where I don't want tAdenauer to want the job.Collection: Jobs
Myths that need clarification: "Everyone in California lives on a white, sandy beach." False. The only people who live on California beaches are vacationers from Arizona, Utah, and Nevada who own condos.Collection: Beach
A child develops individuality long before he develops taste.Collection: Children
I've never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying "Open!" was never a big deal, but holding that television tuner and realizing I alone control what is flashed on the screen brings out the Iacocca in me.Collection: Doors
I was leafing through a magazine where there was a before-and-after picture of a woman who went from a size 5 to a size 3 by liposuction. Was she serious? I've cooked bigger turkeys than her "before" picture.Collection: Turkeys
Maybe you know why a child can reject a hot dog with mustard served on a soft bun at home, yet eat six of them two hours later at fifty cents each.Collection: Dog
My type of humor is almost pure identification. A housewife reads my column and says, 'But that's happened to ME! I know just what she's talking about!Collection: Women
[On her father's death:] I didn't know his leaving would hurt so much.Collection: Hurt
I've always felt there are two things a woman should never do after the age of thirty-five: stand in natural light and have a baby.Collection: Baby
One son appears in stereo - a transistor in one ear and the phone in the other.Collection: Humorous
With all the precautions and risks that accompany sex today, it sounds about as much fun as walking through a minefield.Collection: Funny
Remember, you can lead a fifty-seven-year-old body to motherhood, but you can't make it stay awake.Collection: Funny
The mole rat is the only rodent born without a fur coat. With a good lawyer, someone would pay for that little oversight.Collection: Funny
You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.Collection: Family
A kitchen without an ironing board? Are you kidding? It's un-American. It's like Simon without Garfunkel.Collection: Ironing Board
Poached eggs are good, poached animals are not.Collection: Animal
I'm on a diet as my skin doesn't fit me anymore.Collection: Skins
Our teen-agers withdrew to their bedrooms on their thirteenth birthday and didn't show themselves to us again until it was time to get married.Collection: Married
I will never understand children. I never pretended to. I meet mothers all the time who make resolutions to themselves. 'I'm going to ... go out of my way to show them I am interested in them and what they do. I am going to understand my children.' These women end up making rag rugs, using blunt scissors.Collection: Mother
Limousines used to be reserved for the ruling class, or, on special occasions, for the working class. Today, limousines are like taxicabs with the door handles still intact.Collection: Funny
Most children's first words are 'Mama' or 'Daddy.' Mine were, 'Do I have to use my own money?'Collection: Children
Authorities say brain cells may shrink, but they don't necessarily die. Frankly, I am cheered by the fact that something is shrinking. I'd be even more thrilled if what was shrinking affected my dress size, but you can't have everything.Collection: Cells
I'm so bored. I went to the food locker yesterday to visit my meat.Collection: Yesterday
Crocodiles have a smile I've seen on the face of every lawyer I've ever met.Collection: Funny
I convinced him his luggage had gone to that big Bermuda Triangle in the sky.Collection: Funny
Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted.Collection: Sunset
Men who have a thirty-six-tele vised-football- games-a- week-habit should be declared legally dead and their estates probated.Collection: Football
I originate from a family where sauce is viewed as a refreshment.Collection: Thanksgiving
Not everyone is comfortable with the kissing ritual. My husband is one of them. Her refuses to press lips with anyone except his wife, mother, and dog. If someone wanted to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he would refuse until he had been formally introduced.Collection: Funny
I never go to a college reunion that I don't come away feeling sorry for all those paunchy, balding jocks trying to hang onto youth. I feel sorry for the men, too.Collection: Cute
Last year I gave seventy-four phone hours to soliciting baked goods for the Bake-A-Rama. I was named Top Call Girl by the League.Collection: Girl
One meal a day is enough for a lion and would be for all of us if all we did all day was swat flies.Collection: Funny