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I had a probing mind and an elephant memory.

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
Mind
Probing
Elephant
Elephants
Memory
Memories

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All my life I've been prejudiced against wealthy people.
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Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.
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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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Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me.
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Twenty-five years is a long time for a girl to live out of a trunk, and after looking over a few houses, I fell in love with one in Southwest Los Angeles.
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I dressed plain, but my partners were always spending more money on clothes than I could afford.
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I have reason to be shy. I've been hurt plenty.
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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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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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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.
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Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.
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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.
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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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Today I blame only certain agents for my long eclipse as a public entertainer.
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You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of the family.
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My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them.
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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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Asking what I considered an impossible salary when I didn't want to work for someone has boosted my pay again and again.
Ethel Waters