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
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
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.
If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it.
Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I'm taking with me when I go.
When humor goes, there goes civilization.
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.
I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.
Never have more children than you have car windows.
It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.
Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you.
One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child's name and how old he or she is.
I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.
Children make your life important.
If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
I have a theory about the human mind. A brain is a lot like a computer. It will only take so many facts, and then it will go on overload and blow up.
Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, 'A house guest,' you're wrong because I have just described my kids.
A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween.
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.
When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.
Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.
For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.
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.
Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?
Never order food in excess of your body weight.
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.
Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.
A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
God created man, but I could do better.
Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.
A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.
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.
I've exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.
It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.
Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.
Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.
I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and give me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it.
