Erma Bombeck Quotes

My roommate and my boyfriend, they both know I am compulsive and controlling.

When I was younger, before I was married and had children, I really was nit-picky, a perfectionist. I was very much into different people's approval. I had too much time on my hands, I think.

If anything changes shape or takes off without me, I'll come after you and kill you. I'm too type A.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

I used to refer to myself as a 'theoretical anorexic,' just as crazy when it came to body image, but saved by a lack of self-discipline. My daughters do everything better than I do - they're smarter, more beautiful, happier. What if they end up better at anorexia, too?

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again.

As an OCD guy, I find change difficult.

I'm very neurotic is what my closet says about me. It's always in great order.

My heavily-cleverly disguised low self-regard manifested itself in my constant showing off, my addiction for publicity, and my intolerable 'me-me-me' attitudes and actions. But it's done, isn't it? And no one can really change, can they? And, hey, it has been a lot of fun being the life-long irresponsible, snarky, nasty art scamp.

I wish somebody would have told me, 'Don't try too hard,' because when I was younger I wanted to try really hard. I wanted to please everybody and be this perfect, polite little girl.

I have a tendency to become very self-critical.

Perfectionism is really a challenge for me, and it causes me to be super-critical of myself in so many ways: about body image constantly; about parenting; about being a mother.

I've struggled a lot in my life with feeling like a failure. I lived in a 'prison of perfectionism,' holding myself to a standard I couldn't possibly live up to. Then I became a mom, and all of a sudden, there arose even more opportunities for failure.

Oh, I'm completely OCD about neatness.

I became super stressed, depressed and miserable because I thought I was terrible at my job when I could not perform flawlessly every day, every scene.

I think people who become compulsive about fitness or eating right, a lot of the time it's out of fear that they're going to lose control or that they're not good enough, so I think anything done out of fear or motivated by fear is often unhealthy.

When you try to do everything perfectly, it gets very tiring.

I tend to overdo things.

Ever since my childhood, I was haunted by the search for perfection. An imperfectly cut paper literally made me ill. I would guillotine it.

I’m probably just as good a mother as the next repressed, obsessive-compulsive paranoiac.

Ma is my biggest critic. When she cleans my cupboard she keeps nagging me as to why I have 20 shoes or why my accessories don't match my dresses. I just keep hiding things from her. There are times when I wonder why she can't praise me like other mommies. But, in a way she is right and I like it when she corrects me.

I'm uncommonly slow to show my work to other people, and by the time I do I've usually exhausted myself so completely that all I really want is for someone to tell me that my efforts have added up to something - not one of my better qualities, I admit.

If you're really worried about the effect of "Silent Night" on the kids, you need a hobby or something, and I'm glad you're pointing that out.

Linda's at her best when she's doing you a meal at home. That's when you see Linda. She cooks, she looks after the kids.

I doubt myself a lot. And I'm very, very just overly critical.