Ethel Waters Quotes

I wanted to be with the kind of people I'd grown up with, but you can't go back to them and be one of them again, no matter how hard you try.
Ethel Waters

Teen, Hard, Try

I have reason to be shy. I've been hurt plenty.
Ethel Waters

Hurt, Reason, Shy

It has been an ache and a joy both to look over this big shoulder of mine at all my yesterdays.
Ethel Waters

Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news.
Ethel Waters

Good, Today, May

All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic.
Ethel Waters

I cannot help feeling I would have been happier with a husband and chidren of my own.
Ethel Waters

Husband, Help, Feeling

I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.
Ethel Waters

Affection, Tenderness, Handing

When you dominate other people's emotions, the time has to come when you will have to pay, and heavily, for that privilege.
Ethel Waters

Time, Emotions, Pay

After years in white theaters I dreaded working in colored houses. The noise, the stomping, whistling, and cheering that hadn't annoyed me when I was young was now something I dreaded.
Ethel Waters

After, Working, Young

All my life I've been prejudiced against wealthy people.
Ethel Waters

Life, Against, Wealthy

Asking what I considered an impossible salary when I didn't want to work for someone has boosted my pay again and again.
Ethel Waters

Work, Someone, Impossible

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.
Ethel Waters

Between, Difference, Decided

Elia Kazan understood my problems. He was able to bring out the very best in me. He gave me credit for my intelligence.
Ethel Waters

Best, Problems, Able

I am an isolationist.
Ethel Waters

I had always loved John Ford's pictures. And I came to love him, too, but I was frightened to death working for him. He used the shock treatment while directing me.
Ethel Waters

Love, Death, Him

I have no acting technique I act instinctively. That's why I can't play any role that isn't based on something in my life.
Ethel Waters

Life, Play, Why

I never accepted the idea that I was all through. I guess no person who has once been a star can do that, ever.
Ethel Waters

Person, Through, Once

I never felt I belonged. I was always an outsider.
Ethel Waters

Felt, Outsider, Belonged

I never was a child.
Ethel Waters

I never was coddled, or liked, or understood by my family.
Ethel Waters

Family, Liked, Understood

I've never been able to feel that there is anything undignified about making your living by the sweat of your brow.
Ethel Waters

Living, Able, Making

In her whole life Mom never earned more than five or six dollars a week. Being without a husband, it was hard for her to find any place at all for us to live.
Ethel Waters

Life, Mom, Husband

Mom never quit on me. My only regret is that she didn't live long enough to share some of the money and comforts my work in show business has brought me.
Ethel Waters

Work, Money, Business

Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me.
Ethel Waters

Mom, Greatest, Wanted

My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them.
Ethel Waters

Family, Whole, Sing

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Biography

Nationality: American

Born: October 31, 1896

Died: September 1, 1977

Links

Find on Amazon: Ethel Waters

Cite this Page: Citation

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