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

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
Fame
Difference
Differences
Success
Mother
Teresa

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There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
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Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.
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Let me put it this way. According to my girth, I should be a ninety-foot redwood.
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Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one Helen Keller is the other.
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When children reach the age of sixteen, they discover the meaning of life: car keys.
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How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?
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A kitchen without an ironing board? Are you kidding? It's un-American. It's like Simon without Garfunkel.
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I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
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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.'
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the ultimate in longevity is the Christmas fruitcake. It is a cake made during the holidays with fruits that make it heavier than the stove it is cooked in.
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All of a sudden, I feel very old and very tired. Maybe when I get to California, the smog, brush fires, floods, and earthquakes will cheer me up.
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I read one psychologist's theory that said, Never strike a child in your anger. When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday?
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I've always felt there are two things a woman should never do after the age of thirty-five: stand in natural light and have a baby.
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When the history of guilt is written, parents who refuse their children money will be right up there in the Top Ten.
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It would have been a wonderful wedding - had it not been mine.
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I don't know when pepper mills in a restaurant got to be right behind frankincense and myrrh in prominence. It used to be in a little jar that sat next to the salt on the table and everyone passed it around, sneezed, and it was no big deal.
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Bombeck's Rug Rule: an ugly carpet will last for ever.
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Kids have little computer bodies with disks that store information. They remember who had to do the dishes the last time you had spaghetti, who lost the knob off the TV set six years ago, who got punished for teasing the dog when he wasn't teasing the dog and who had to wear girls boots the last time it snowed.
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Friends are annuals that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a perennial that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There's a place in the garden for both of them.
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On vacations: We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the saltwater off our bodies, and the sand out of our belongings.
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