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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

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Ethel Waters
Age: 80 †
Born: 1896
Born: October 31
Died: 1977
Died: September 1
Film Actor
Jazz Musician
Singer
Stage Actor
Vocalist
Chester
Pennsylvania
Drinking
Mom
Save
Childhood
Influence
Greatest
Vice
Wanted
Lust
Vices

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Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels.
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I've never been able to feel that there is anything undignified about making your living by the sweat of your brow.
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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.
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When I act I try to express the suffering or joy I've known during my lifetime.
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There had been lots of crises in my life. And there was plenty of spunk and battle cry still left in me.
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I have reason to be shy. I've been hurt plenty.
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There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.
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Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.
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My father came back one day and forced my mother to submit to him. He raped her, holding a knife.
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My aunts lived on liquor and seldom felt like eating much. I don't know what's wrong about a kid stealing when he's hungry.
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There's no hypocrisy in Hell's Kitchen.
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There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.
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I was born out of wedlock. Nobody brought me up.
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The greatest acts in colored show business had long made Harlem their home and favorite stamping ground.
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When you dominate other people's emotions, the time has to come when you will have to pay, and heavily, for that privilege.
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Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.
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We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out.
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There is a certain type of white Southerner who respects certain Negro individuals.
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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.
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I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.
Ethel Waters