Housekeeping Quotes

“No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor. ”
― Betty Friedan

“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?”
― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

“And this mess is so big
And so deep and so tall,
We cannot pick it up.
There is no way at all!”
― Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

“A messy house is a must - it separates your true friends from other friends.
Real friends are there to visit you not your house!”
― Jennifer Wilson

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.”
― Phyllis Diller

“Housework can kill you if done right.”
― Erma Bombeck

“All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them. ”
― 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 is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.”
― Erma Bombeck

“Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn't even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.”
― Erma Bombeck

“My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors.”
― Bette Midler

“I hate housework. You make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.”
― Joan Rivers

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

“There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it.”
― Erma Bombeck

“Excuse the mess, but we live here.”
― Roseanne Barr

“I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on.”
― Roseanne Barr

“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've buried a lot of my laundry in the back yard.”
― Phyllis Diller

“I always wondered why the makers leave housekeeping and cooking out of their tales. Isn't it what all the great wars and battles are fought for -- so that at day's end a family may eat together in a peaceful house? The tale tells how the Lords of Manva hunted & gathered roots & cooked their suppers while they were camped in exile in the foothills of Sul, but it doesn't say what their wives & children were living on in their city left ruined & desolate by the enemy. They were finding food too, somehow, cleaning house & honoring the gods, the way we did in the siege & under the tyranny of the Alds. When the heroes came back from the mountain, they were welcomed with a feast. I'd like to know what the food was and how the women managed it.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Voices

“Sometimes I want to clean up my desk and go out and say, “Respect me; I’m a respectable grown-up!" and other times I just want to jump into a paper bag and shake and bake myself to death.”
― Wendy Wasserstein

“We amass material things for the same reason that we eat - to satisfy a craving. Buying on impulse and eating and drinking to excess are attempts to alleviate stress. From observing my clients, I have noticed that when they discard excess clothing, their tummies tend to slim down, when they discard books and documents, their minds become clearer, when they reduce the number of cosmetics and tidy up the area around the sink and bath, their complexion tends to become clear and their skin smooth. -p226”
― Marie Kondō, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

“Home is the first point of investment. The first and most important thing to invest in is your home. Make sure your house is in good condition physically and energetically, make sure you’re paid up on the household bills, make sure you’re stocked up on supplies and food, make sure your home is furnished to your style and comfort, make sure you’ve got nice plants to clean the air, nice art, nice crystals and essential oils, nice things that promote your wellbeing…. Make sure your garden is growing nutritious plants. Invest in your household and your family because they have the greatest Return on Investment. And your investment in your home will be a magnet for many other different kinds of investments.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic

“To strip the wallpaper off the fairy tale of The Family House in which the comfort and happiness of men and children have been the priority is to find behind it an unthanked, unloved, neglected, exhausted woman. It requires skill, time, dedication and empathy to create a home that everyone enjoys and that functions well. Above all else, it is an act of immense generosity to be the architect of everyone else's well-being. This task is still mostly perceived as women's work. Consequently, there are all kinds of words used to belittle this huge endeavour.”
― Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography

“I think homes that are too tidy, neat and sparse look like nothing interesting is going on.”
― Shelley Malec Vitale

“Quickly she shredded the cabbage on the chopping block and tossed it along with the onion and tomatoes in a blue Pyrex bowl. Then she slid the lamb chops, encrusted with fresh rosemary, into the oven.
While the lamb baked, she brushed her hair in the washroom and pinned it back again. Then she zipped on a silk floral dress she'd purchased in Bristol and retrieved her grandmother's rhinestone necklace, one of the few family heirlooms her mother packed for her, to clasp around her neck.
At the foot of the bed was the antique trunk she'd brought from her childhood home in Balham more than a decade ago. Opening the trunk, she removed her wedding album along with her treasured copy of 'The Secret Garden' and the tubes of watercolors her father had sent with her and her brother. Her father hoped she would spend time painting on the coast, but Maggie hadn't inherited his talent or passion for art. Sometimes she wondered if Edmund would have become an artist.
Carefully she took out her newest treasures- pieces of crystal she and Walter hd received as wedding presents, protected by pages and pages of her husband's newspaper. She unwrapped the crystal and two silver candlesticks, then set them on the white-cloaked dining table. She arranged the candlesticks alongside a small silver bowl filled with mint jelly and a basket with sliced whole-meal bread from the bakery. After placing white, tapered candles into the candlesticks, she lit them and stepped back to admire her handiwork.
Satisfied, she blew them out. Once she heard Walter at the door, she'd quickly relight the candles.
When the timer chimed, she removed the lamb chops and turned off the oven, placing the pan on her stovetop and covering it with foil. She'd learned a lot about housekeeping in the past decade, and now she was determined to learn how to be the best wife to Walter. And a doting mother to their children.
If only she could avoid the whispers from her aunt's friends.”
― Melanie Dobson, Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor

“But it’s different with a woman. Her work in the house is to keep not to get.”
― George Sand, The Devil's Pool and Other Stories

“Before I go to bed, I clear a safe access path from the front door to the bedrooms. I'm not going to put everything away, because it will all be out again tomorrow, but this is my concession to good housekeeping: to make sure we can get out without breaking our necks if there's a fire.”
― Jessica Dettmann, How to Be Second Best

“...
In her immaculate kitchen she said, 'Yes, I've changed. I realized I was being awfully sloppy and self-indulgent. It's no disgrace to be a good homemaker. I've decided to do my job conscientiously, the way Dave does his, and to be more careful about my appearance. Are you sure you don't want a sandwich?'
Joanna shook her head. 'Bobbie,' she said, 'I— Don't you see what's happened? Whatever's around here—it's got you, the way it got Charmaine!'
Bobbie smiled at her. 'Nothing's got me,' she said. 'There's nothing around. That was a lot of nonsense. Stepford's a fine healthful place to live.'
...”
― Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives

“Domesticity dampens desire. 91”
― Tim Kreider, I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays

“Housekeeping, to her, was a way to cultivate a woman’s submission and steal time, and she wanted nothing of it.”
― Martha Ackmann, These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson

“The management of a home is an art. We have learned the hard way, and it is still not over. Even deciding on the menus is not easy if one thinks of the number of days there are in a year and the fact that there are three meals in one day.”
― Mariama Bâ, So Long a Letter