Ethel Waters Quotes

• There is more openness in LA to possibilities than on the East Coast of America. There is a pioneering spirit there that stems from the reason people went out there in the first place-to find something new.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in America

  Tags in Spirit, People

• You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of a family. Just do your job right and your kids will love you.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Family, Mother

  Tags in Importance

• Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk.

  Ethel Waters

• 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

  Topics in Emotion

  Tags in Peoples

• We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mom

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

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Good News

• Though I was excited about the Sojourner Truth play, it was not reassuring to think that my entire future might depend on the success of that one show.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Excited

• There’s no hypocrisy in Hell’s Kitchen.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Hypocrisy

• 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

• There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Business

  Tags in Amateur, Undertakers

• 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

• 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 glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn’t come down.

  Ethel Waters

• 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

• Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down.

  Ethel Waters

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

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in World, Great, Singer

• 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

• 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

• 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

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

• Ursula Andress
• Lacey Chabert
• Carrie Fisher
• Joanna Lumley
• Sandra Bullock
• Fiona Shaw
• Annabella Sciorra
• Linda Hunt
• Jessica Pare
• Olivia Munn

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 25th January

Births

• 1949 - Paul Nurse
• 1949 - Tom Paulin
• 1970 - Stephen Chbosky
• 1981 - Alicia Keys
• 1916 - Evelyn Cunningham

Deaths

• 1996 - Jonathan Larson
• 1640 - Robert Burton
• 1994 - Stephen Cole Kleene
• 1999 - Sarah Louise Delany
• 1990 - Ava Gardner