Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Ethel Waters
Age: 80 †
Born: 1896
Born: October 31
Died: 1977
Died: September 1
Film Actor
Jazz Musician
Singer
Stage Actor
Vocalist
Chester
Pennsylvania
Influence
Vice
Greatest
Lust
Wanted
Vices
Drinking
Mom
Save
Childhood
More quotes by Ethel Waters
There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.
Ethel Waters
If whites bored me, it was because they bored themselves. They seemed to get little fun out of life and were desperately lonely.
Ethel Waters
There is a certain type of white Southerner who respects certain Negro individuals.
Ethel Waters
There's no hypocrisy in Hell's Kitchen.
Ethel Waters
I dressed plain, but my partners were always spending more money on clothes than I could afford.
Ethel Waters
Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels.
Ethel Waters
What broke Mom's heart was realizing that her children knew nothing and cared nothing about the better side of life.
Ethel Waters
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.
Ethel Waters
I never felt I belonged. I was always an outsider.
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
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
When I act I try to express the suffering or joy I've known during my lifetime.
Ethel Waters
Today I blame only certain agents for my long eclipse as a public entertainer.
Ethel Waters
There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.
Ethel Waters
You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of the family.
Ethel Waters
I've never been able to feel that there is anything undignified about making your living by the sweat of your brow.
Ethel Waters
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
My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them.
Ethel Waters
I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.
Ethel Waters
There had been lots of crises in my life. And there was plenty of spunk and battle cry still left in me.
Ethel Waters