Quote

I was born out of wedlock. Nobody brought me up.

Ethel Waters

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Brought
Nobody
Born
Wedlock

More quotes by Ethel Waters

Image
Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels.
Ethel Waters
Image
I found that a couple of bottles of beer would give me a lift, but the third bottle would sober me up.
Ethel Waters
Image
My father came back one day and forced my mother to submit to him. He raped her, holding a knife.
Ethel Waters
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 was young was now something I dreaded.
Ethel Waters
Image
Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.
Ethel Waters
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 used the shock treatment while directing me.
Ethel Waters
Image
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
Image
We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out.
Ethel Waters
Image
What broke Mom's heart was realizing that her children knew nothing and cared nothing about the better side of life.
Ethel Waters
Image
All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic.
Ethel Waters
Image
I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.
Ethel Waters
Image
I never posed as a saint. I would have slept with a man for nothing if I liked him well enough.
Ethel Waters
Image
I've never been able to feel that there is anything undignified about making your living by the sweat of your brow.
Ethel Waters
Image
My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them.
Ethel Waters
Image
There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.
Ethel Waters
Image
I had a probing mind and an elephant memory.
Ethel Waters
Image
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
Image
Today I blame only certain agents for my long eclipse as a public entertainer.
Ethel Waters
Image
All my life I've been prejudiced against wealthy people.
Ethel Waters
Image
I never felt I belonged. I was always an outsider.
Ethel Waters