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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels. — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
Today I blame only certain agents for my long eclipse as a public entertainer. — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
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… — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their… — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
I dressed plain, but my partners were always spending more money on clothes than I could afford. — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
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… — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races. — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
My father came back one day and forced my mother to submit to him. He raped her, holding a knife. — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
