Erma Bombeck

“Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.”

“A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.”

“Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.”

“Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.”

“Never have more children than you have car windows.”

“Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.”

“Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.”

“My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.”

“Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.”

“It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.”

“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”

“All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.”

“I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and give me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it.”

“Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.”

“A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.”

“Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.”

“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.”

“Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.”

“Never order food in excess of your body weight.”

“Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.”

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.”

“God created man, but I could do better.”

“Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.”

“For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.”