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When I act I try to express the suffering or joy I've known during my lifetime.

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
Express
Lifetime
Joy
Known
Suffering
Trying

More quotes by Ethel Waters

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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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Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels.
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There's no hypocrisy in Hell's Kitchen.
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There is a certain type of white Southerner who respects certain Negro individuals.
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Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.
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What broke Mom's heart was realizing that her children knew nothing and cared nothing about the better side of life.
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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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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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My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them.
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Today I blame only certain agents for my long eclipse as a public entertainer.
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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.
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I have reason to be shy. I've been hurt plenty.
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I was born out of wedlock. Nobody brought me up.
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Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.
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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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We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out.
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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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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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Though I was a Catholic, I recognized that Protestant churches had something.
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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.
Ethel Waters