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Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one Helen Keller is the other.

Erma Bombeck

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Erma Bombeck
Age: 69 †
Born: 1927
Born: February 21
Died: 1996
Died: April 22
Column Author
Journalist
Writer
Bellbrook
Ohio
Erma Louise Bombeck
Madonna
Confuse
Confusing
Determination
Greatness
Fame
Successful
Keller
Success
Helen

More quotes by Erma Bombeck

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I do not participate in any sport with ambulances at the bottom of the hill.
Erma Bombeck
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With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.
Erma Bombeck
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One son appears in stereo - a transistor in one ear and the phone in the other.
Erma Bombeck
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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
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There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
Erma Bombeck
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Myths that need clarification: No matter how many times you see the Grand canyon, you are still emotionally moved to tears. False. It depends on how many children the out-of-towners brought with them who kicked the back of your seat from Phoenix to Flagstaff and got their gum caught in your hair.
Erma Bombeck
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Motherhood isn't just a series of contractions it's a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel a responsibility to protect and defend that human being.
Erma Bombeck
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Written on her tombstone: I told you I was sick.
Erma Bombeck
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I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.
Erma Bombeck
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Kids need love the most when they're acting most unlovable.
Erma Bombeck
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Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter productivity.
Erma Bombeck
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When you leave them in the morning, they stick their nose in the door crack and stand there like a portrait until you turn the key eight hours later.
Erma Bombeck
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Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
Erma Bombeck
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In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn't danced in television.
Erma Bombeck
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Kids are without a doubt the most suspicious diners in the world. They will eat mud (raw or baked) rocks, paste, crayons, ball-point pens, moving goldfish, cigarette butts, and cat food. Try to coax a little beef stew into their mouths and they look at you like a puppy when you stand over him with the Sunday paper rolled up.
Erma Bombeck
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I'm real ambivalent about [working mothers]. Those of use who have been in the women's movement for a long time know that we've talked a good game of go out and fulfill your dreams and be everything you were meant to be. But by the same token, we want daughters-in-law who are going to stay home and raise our grandchildren.
Erma Bombeck
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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.
Erma Bombeck
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Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.
Erma Bombeck
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Never loan your car to anyone to whom you've given birth.
Erma Bombeck
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I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: 'Checkout Time is 18 years.'
Erma Bombeck