Quote

Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.

Erma Bombeck

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Erma Bombeck
Age: 69 †
Born: 1927
Born: February 21
Died: 1996
Died: April 22
Column Author
Journalist
Writer
Bellbrook
Ohio
Erma Louise Bombeck
Teresa
Madonna
Fame
Difference
Differences
Success
Mother

More quotes by Erma Bombeck

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Having a delivery covered by Medicare just isn't going to fly. It's too risky for a woman to put a baby down and not remember where she left it.
Erma Bombeck
Image
I will never understand children. I never pretended to. I meet mothers all the time who make resolutions to themselves. 'I'm going to ... go out of my way to show them I am interested in them and what they do. I am going to understand my children.' These women end up making rag rugs, using blunt scissors.
Erma Bombeck
Image
There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Early in my life I had made a pact with myself. I would never eat anything that moved when I cooked it, excited the dog, or inflated upon impact with my teeth.
Erma Bombeck
Image
The grass is always greener over the septic tank.
Erma Bombeck
Image
You become about as exciting as your food blender. The kids come in, look you in the eye, and ask if anybody's home.
Erma Bombeck
Image
House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad.
Erma Bombeck
Image
In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn't danced in television.
Erma Bombeck
Image
My sister and I never engaged in sibling rivalry. Our parents weren't that crazy about either one of us.
Erma Bombeck
Image
I love my mother for all the times she said absolutely nothing.... Thinking back on it all, it must have been the most difficult part of mothering she ever had to do: knowing the outcome, yet feeling she had no right to keep me from charting my own path. I thank her for all her virtues, but mostly for never once having said, I told you so.
Erma Bombeck
Image
I have never understood, for example, how come a child can climb up on the roof, scale the TV antenna, and rescue the cat ... yet cannot walk down the hallway without grabbing both walls with his grubby hands for balance.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Why would anyone steal a shopping cart? It's like stealing a two-year-old.
Erma Bombeck
Image
No self-respecting mother would run out of intimidations on the eve of a major holiday.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Family life got better and we got our car back - as soon as we put 'I love Mom' on the license plate.
Erma Bombeck
Image
My mother phones daily to ask, Did you just try to reach me? When I reply no, she adds, So, if you're not too busy, call me while I'm still alive, . . . and hangs up.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Some emotions don't make a lot of noise. It's hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint - like a heartbeat. And pure love - why, some days it's so quiet, you don't even know it's there.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Babies on television never spit up on the Ultrasuede.
Erma Bombeck
Image
My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?
Erma Bombeck