Quote

Everyone I talked to was a recording-the bank, the elevator, your office, the school, a wrong number. You used to be able to call a wrong number and get a person.

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
Persons
Number
Elevator
Able
Office
Elevators
Person
Numbers
Telephones
Call
Recording
Wrong
Talked
Everyone
Bank
School
Humorous
Used
Phones

More quotes by Erma Bombeck

Image
If the nest is truly empty, who owns all this junk?
Erma Bombeck
Image
I didn't fear old age. I was just becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the only people who said old age was beautiful were usually twenty-three years old.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Phone are wonderful instruments, but I wouldn't want our daughter to marry one.
Erma Bombeck
Image
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.
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
A kitchen without an ironing board? Are you kidding? It's un-American. It's like Simon without Garfunkel.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Remember, you can lead a fifty-seven-year-old body to motherhood, but you can't make it stay awake.
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
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
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
I don't think women outlive men, Doctor. It only seems longer.
Erma Bombeck
Image
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
Image
Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Sex in the nineties is boring. The problem is that it has gone from an active act to a spectator sport. We watch people make love on television and in films. We call 900 numbers to hear what someone would do to us if they weren't sitting in a boiler room of other dirty talkers reading from a prepared script.
Erma Bombeck
Image
To say, Well, I write when I really get into it is a bunch of bull. Put the paper in the typewriter, stare at it a long time, get snowblindness if you have to, but write something.
Erma Bombeck
Image
The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a mother must have her children believe she has never engaged in sex, never made a bad decision, never caused her own mother a moment's anxiety, and was never a child.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Written on her tombstone: I told you I was sick.
Erma Bombeck
Image
Let me put it this way. According to my girth, I should be a ninety-foot redwood.
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
I've never vied for power in the family before. Pointing a box at the garage door and saying Open! was never a big deal, but holding that television tuner and realizing I alone control what is flashed on the screen brings out the Iacocca in me.
Erma Bombeck