Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all… — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
If I wanted pity, I got it because I'm illegitimate. And when I didn't want it I was mean and nasty. — 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… — Ethel Waters Copy Share Image
Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me. — 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
