If compliments were food, I'd have starved to death 28 years ago.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests that the speaker has rarely received compliments, comparing them to essential food.
Erma Bombeck's quote reflects on the scarcity of compliments in her life, highlighting how vital positive affirmations are to one's emotional well-being, much like food is to physical survival. With a touch of humor, she underscores the idea that compliments, just like nourishment, play a significant role in sustaining one's happiness and sense of self-worth, and lacking them can feel equally detrimental.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of recognizing others and providing feedback.
We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.
You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.
Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
Not everyone is comfortable with the kissing ritual. My husband is one of them. Her refuses to press lips with anyone except his wife, mother, and dog. If someone wanted to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he would refuse until he had been formally introduced.
There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context. If you translated something into French and then had it translated back into English by somebody who didn't know the original, you'd lose what was funny.
She was, in fact, quite a pleasant looking girl, even if her bosom had clearly been intended for a girl two feet taller; but she was not Her. The Egregious Professor of Grammar and Usage would have corrected this to "she was not she," which would have caused the Professor of Logic to spit out his drink.
Never run after you own hat - others will be delighted to do it; why spoil their fun?
Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age.
Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.
A brown spotted lady-bug climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it -- which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its simplicity more than once.
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