Forever, Erma Quotes

“I've exercised with women so thin, buzzards followed them to their cars.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing from America's Favorite Humorist

“Enter my first neighbor - a woman who spoke in complete, coherent sentences, who ate with a knife and fork and who only cried at weddings. I couldn't help myself. In a dramatic gesture, I bolted the door and threw my body across it to prevent her exit. She understood.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing from America's Favorite Humorist

“I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with whom and what time you would get home. I loved you enough to insist you buy a bike with your own money even though we could afford it. I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover your friend was a creep. I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out of it to the drugstore and confess, “I stole this.” I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your bedroom, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes. I loved you enough to say, “Yes, you can go to Disney World on Mother’s Day.” I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, disgust and tears in my eyes. I loved you enough not to make excuses for your lack of respect or your bad manners. I loved you enough to admit that I was wrong and ask for your forgiveness. I loved you enough to ignore what every other mother did or said. I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall, hurt and fail. I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your own actions at age 6, 10 or 16. I loved you enough to figure you would lie about the party being chaperoned but forgave you for it—after discovering I was right. I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be. But, most of all, I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it. That was the hardest part of all.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“Let us hope manufacturers can come up with a diaper that is environmentally sound. To go back to cloth would send us back to the day when breathing and raising a baby at the same time were incompatible.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing from America's Favorite Humorist

“Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Gone With the Wind in 1937. She was 37 years old at the time. Margaret Chase Smith was elected to the Senate for the first time in 1948 at the age of 49. Ruth Gordon picked up her first Oscar in 1968 for Rosemary’s Baby. She was 72 years old. Billie Jean King took the battle of women’s worth to a tennis court in Houston’s Astrodome to outplay Bobby Riggs. She was 31 years of age. Grandma Moses began a painting career at the age of 76. Anne Morrow Lindbergh followed in the shadow of her husband until she began to question the meaning of existence for individual women. She published her thoughts in Gift from the Sea in 1955, at 49. Shirley Temple Black was Ambassador to Ghana at the age of 47. Golda Meir in 1969 was elected prime minister of Israel. She had just turned 71. This summer Barbara Jordan was given official duties as a speaker at the Democratic National Convention. She is 40 years old. You can tell yourself these people started out as exceptional. You can tell yourself they had influence before they started. You can tell yourself the conditions under which they achieved were different from yours. Or you can be like a woman I knew who sat at her kitchen window year after year and watched everyone else do it and then said to herself, “It’s my turn.” I was 37 years old at the time.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“Stepfather—January 6, 1980 In addition to imitation mayonnaise, fake fur, sugar substitutes and plastic that wears like iron, the nuclear family has added another synthetic to its life: step-people. There are stepmothers, stepfathers, stepsons and stepdaughters. The reception they get is varied. Some are looked upon as relief pitchers who are brought in late but are optimistic enough to try to win the game. Some are regarded as double agents, who in the end will pay for their crimes. There are few generalizations you can make about step-people, except they’re all locked into an awkward family unit none of them are too crazy about. I know. I’ve been there. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. I became a hyphenated child a few years after my “real” father died. I was the only stepchild in North America to have a stepfather who had the gall to make me go to bed when I was sleepy, do homework before I went to school, and who yelled at me for wearing bedroom slippers in the snow. My real father wouldn’t have said that. My stepfather punished me for sassing my mother, wouldn’t allow me to waste food and wouldn’t let me spend money I didn’t have. My real father wouldn’t have done that. My stepfather remained silent when I slammed doors in his face, patient when I insisted my mother take “my side” and emotionless when I informed him he had no rights. My real father wouldn’t have taken that. My stepfather paid for my needs and my whims, was there through all my pain of growing up...and checked himself out of the VA hospital to give me away at my wedding. My real father...was there all the time, and I didn’t know it. What is a “real” mother, father, son or daughter? “Real” translates to something authentic, genuine, permanent. Something that exists. It has nothing to do with labor pains, history, memories or beginnings. All love begins with one day and builds. “Step” in the dictionary translates to “a short distance.” It’s shorter than you think.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“I brought children into this lousy, mixed-up world because when you love someone and they love you back, the world doesn’t look that lousy or seem that mixed up.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“There are basic differences between food and clothing. You eat food and wear clothing. Food goes in; clothing goes on. 2. Do not bite anything that will bite back. This includes the dog, other babies, electrical cords and your father when he is watching professional football on television. 3. Washing your face after a meal is not considered cruel and unusual punishment. It won’t do any good to report Mommy and Daddy to the police. 4.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“Okies who had just stepped into the corridor long enough to get a tin can of water for our boiling radiator. There are other stories, other dilemmas, but the characters never change. We’re always standing around, unwashed, uncurled, harried, penniless, memory gone, no lipstick, no hose, unmatched shoes, and using the dirtiest cloth in the house to bind our wounds. Makes”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“I Was 37 Years Old at the Time”—August 7, 1976 For years, you’ve watched everyone else do it. The children who sat on the curb eating their lunches while waiting for their bus. The husband you put through school who drank coffee standing up and slept with his hand on the alarm. And you envied them and said, “Maybe next year I’ll go back to school.” And the years went by and this morning you looked into the mirror and said, “You blew it. You’re too old to pick it up and start a new career.” This column is for you.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“I was autographing books at one of those little rattan tables in the bookstore when I found myself looking into the saddest eyes I had ever seen. “The doctor wanted me to buy something that would make me laugh,” she said. I hesitated about signing the book. It would have taken corrective surgery to make that woman laugh. “Is it a big problem?” I asked. The whole line of people was eavesdropping. “Yes. My daughter is getting married.” The line cheered. “Is she twelve or something?” “She’s twenty-four,” said the woman, biting her lip. “And he’s a wonderful man. It’s just that she could have stayed home a few more years.” The woman behind her looked wistful. “We’ve moved three times, and our son keeps finding us. Some women have all the luck.” Isn’t it curious how some mothers don’t know when they’ve done a good job or when it’s basically finished? They figure the longer the kids hang around, the better parents they are. I guess it all depends on how you regard children in the first place. How do you regard yours? Are they like an appliance? The more you have, the more status you command? They’re under warranty to perform at your whim for the first 18 years; then, when they start costing money, you get rid of them? Are they like a used car? You maintain it for years, and when you’re ready to sell it to someone else, you feel a great responsibility to keep it running or it reflects on you? (That’s why some parents never let their children marry good friends.) Are they like an endowment policy? You invest in them for 18 or 20 years, and then for the next 20 years they return dividends that support you in your declining years or they suffer from terminal guilt? Are they like a finely gilded mirror that reflects the image of its owner in every way? On the day the owner looks in and sees a flaw, a crack, a distortion, one tiny idea or attitude that is different from his own, he casts it aside and declares himself a failure? I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you’re both breathless...they crash...you add a longer tail...they hit the rooftop...you pluck them out of the spout. You patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they’ll fly. Finally they are airborne, but they need more string so you keep letting it out. With each twist of the ball of twine there is a sadness that goes with the joy, because the kite becomes more distant, and somehow you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together and soar as it was meant to soar—free and alone. Only then do you know that you did your job.”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma

“I’ve always admired parents who discipline their children in hushed whispers: “Arthur, you are a naughty boy for turning on all the gas jets. Now I want you to drag your little sister out into the fresh air, give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and apologize. Don’t make Mama have to raise her voice.” I”
― Erma Bombeck, Forever, Erma