"Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people's children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it."

"There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo."

"Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, "A house guest," you're wrong because I have just described my kids."

"In general my children refuse to eat anything that hasn't danced in television."

"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."

"Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It's literary suicide."

"What's with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?"

"When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway."

"I will buy any creme, cosmetic, or elixir from a woman with a European accent."

"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."

"I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage."

"One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child's name and how old he or she is."

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

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

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

"Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?"

"My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint."

"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."

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

"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."

"No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick."

"Never order food in excess of your body weight."

"When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911."

"Housework, if you do it right, will kill you."

"Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence."

"The only reason I would take up jogging is so that I could hear heavy breathing again."

"God created man, but I could do better."

"Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub."

"Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother."

"I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex."

"Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You're not out of it until the computer says you're out of it."

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

"Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I'm taking with me when I go."

"I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order."

"I've exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars."

"I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes."

"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."

"There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt."

"I have a theory about the human mind. A brain is a lot like a computer. It will only take so many facts, and then it will go on overload and blow up."

"It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding."

"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."

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

"Never have more children than you have car windows."

"House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad."

"Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown."

"Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving."

"Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you."

"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."

"When humor goes, there goes civilization."

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