Ethel Waters
13 quotes
Biography
Ethel Waters was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts.
"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."
"Though I was excited about the Sojourner Truth play, it was not reassuring to think that my entire future might depend on the success of that one show."
"Elia Kazan understood my problems. He was able to bring out the very best in me. He gave me credit for my intelligence."
"We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can."
"Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me."
"Mom never quit on me. My only regret is that she didn't live long enough to share some of the money and comforts my work in show business has brought me."
"In her whole life Mom never earned more than five or six dollars a week. Being without a husband, it was hard for her to find any place at all for us to live."
"Though I was excited about the Sojourner Truth play, it was not reassuring to think that my entire future might depend on the success of that one show."
"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."
"We are all gifted. That is our inheritance."
"My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them."
"You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of a family. Just do your job right and your kids will love you."
"Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news."