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If compliments were food, I'd have starved to death 28 years ago.

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
Years
Starved
Compliments
Compliment
Cooking
Food
Death

More quotes by Erma Bombeck

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I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
Erma Bombeck
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It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.
Erma Bombeck
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It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.
Erma Bombeck
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Do I have to use my own money?
Erma Bombeck
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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
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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.
Erma Bombeck
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My son would walk to the refrigerator-freezer and fling both doors open and stand there until the hairs in his nose iced up. After surveying $200 worth of food in varying shapes and forms, he would declare loudly, 'There's nothing to eat!'
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 remember thinking how often we look, but never see ... we listen, but never hear ... we exist, but never feel. We take our relationships for granted. A house is only a place. It has no life of its own. It needs human voices, activity and laughter to come alive.
Erma Bombeck
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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.
Erma Bombeck
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My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
Erma Bombeck
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The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms. . . and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.
Erma Bombeck
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The age of your children is a key factor in how quickly you are served in a restaurant. We once had a waiter in Canada who said, Could I get you your check? and we answered, How about the menu first?
Erma Bombeck
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When children reach the age of sixteen, they discover the meaning of life: car keys.
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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My type of humor is almost pure identification. A housewife reads my column and says, 'But that's happened to ME! I know just what she's talking about!
Erma Bombeck
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A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend - and he's a priest.
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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Every puppy should have a boy.
Erma Bombeck
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My mind works . . . two boobs never get me a job.
Erma Bombeck