"I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you're both breathless. They crash . . . you add a longer tail . . . you patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they'll fly."
"When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States."
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Source: A Marriage Made In Heaven; or, Too Tired For an Affair. Book by Erma Bombeck, 1993.
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"Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?"
"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'."
"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."
"In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet."
"Someone once threw me a small, brown, hairy kiwi fruit, and I threw a wastebasket over it until it was dead."