Erma Bombeck

“Never have more children than you have car windows.”

“The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.”

“I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of food”

“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.”

“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.”

“We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.”

“Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.”

“Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.”

“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.”

“It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.”

“There is one thing I have never taught my body how to do and that is to figure out at 6 A.M. what it wants to eat at 6 P.M.”

“Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.”

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.”

“I come from a home where gravy is a beverage.”

“Children make your life important.”

“My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.”

“Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you.”

“Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It's literary suicide.”

“House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad.”

“In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn't danced in television.”