Ethel Waters Quotes

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

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Never, Feel

• New York is only 97 miles from Philadelphia but was the Big Time as no other American city has ever been.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in American, City

• Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Negroes, Human Beings

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

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Family

  Tags in Singing

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self -Love, Pictures

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Theaters, Self, Working

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mom, Influenced, Childhood

• Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Mother

  Tags in Wanted, Myself, Evangelism

• The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I’d have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Audience, Thought, Myself

• There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Emotional, Singing

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

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Wanted

• No one in the world can beat Ella Fitzgerald as a riff singer.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in World, Great, Singer

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Never, Accepted

• 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

  Topics in Intelligence

  Tags in Self

• 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

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Mom, Without, Dad

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Think, People

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

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Family

  Tags in Happy

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mom, Self

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Salary

• 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

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Self, Role

Ethel Waters (39)

Birth:	31st October, 1896
Death:	1st September, 1977
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Actress, Singer

About

Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. She was an American blues and jazz singer and actress. Her best-known recordings include "Dinah," "Stormy Weather," "Taking a Chance on Love," "Heat Wave," "Supper Time," "Am I Blue?" and "Cabin in the Sky," as well as her version of the spiritual "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." She was the second African-American, after Hattie McDaniel, to be nominated for an Academy Award. Her role in several films include: Cabin in the Sky, Pinky, The Member of the Wedding, Rufus Jones for President, Tales of Manhattan, The Heart Is a Rebel, and Carib Gold.

Related Authors

• Ofra Haza
• Willa Ford
• Susan Olsen
• Lynn Redgrave
• Vanessa Paradis
• Emmanuelle Beart
• Pauline Frederick
• Sharon Tate
• Melanie Brown
• Jessica Walter

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 21st November

Births

• 1870 - Alexander Berkman
• 1962 - Steven Curtis Chapman
• 1943 - Philip Norman Bredesen Jr.
• 1989 - Rene Francois Ghislain Magritte
• 1971 - Michael Strahan

Deaths

• 1996 - Mohammad Abdus Salam
• 1999 - Quentin Crisp
• 1959 - Max Baer
• 1945 - Robert Benchley
• 1926 - Joseph McKenna