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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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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 was born out of wedlock. Nobody brought me up.
Ethel Waters
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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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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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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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I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.
Ethel Waters
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I found that a couple of bottles of beer would give me a lift, but the third bottle would sober me up.
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All my life I've been prejudiced against wealthy people.
Ethel Waters
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I had a probing mind and an elephant memory.
Ethel Waters
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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.
Ethel Waters
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You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of the family.
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There's no hypocrisy in Hell's Kitchen.
Ethel Waters
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I could always open shows, perform through the middle, and close shows.
Ethel Waters
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I have reason to be shy. I've been hurt plenty.
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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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Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk.
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There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.
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I never posed as a saint. I would have slept with a man for nothing if I liked him well enough.
Ethel Waters
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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.
Ethel Waters
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We show girls were forced to live in whorehouses in each town, no other accommodations being available.
Ethel Waters