Ethel Waters Quotes

I could depend a lot on my shaking, though I never shimmied vulgarly and only to express myself.

Today I blame only certain agents for my long eclipse as a public entertainer.

There is a certain type of white Southerner who respects certain Negro individuals.

Though I was a Catholic, I recognized that Protestant churches had something.

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

I have no acting technique I act instinctively. That's why I can't play any role that isn't based on something in my life.

What impressed me most about New York were its huge apartment houses.

What broke Mom's heart was realizing that her children knew nothing and cared nothing about the better side of life.

If I wanted pity, I got it because I'm illegitimate. And when I didn't want it I was mean and nasty.

I never posed as a saint. I would have slept with a man for nothing if I liked him well enough.

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.

I had a probing mind and an elephant memory.

There had been lots of crises in my life. And there was plenty of spunk and battle cry still left in me.

I don't care to dress up except when it is necessary or good for my business.

I know the most terrible thing that can happen to a woman. That is the gang-up. Men put you to sleep with their drops and one man after another goes in and takes you.

If whites bored me, it was because they bored themselves. They seemed to get little fun out of life and were desperately lonely.

Asking what I considered an impossible salary when I didn't want to work for someone has boosted my pay again and again.

My father came back one day and forced my mother to submit to him. He raped her, holding a knife.

I could always open shows, perform through the middle, and close shows.

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.

Elia Kazan understood my problems. He was able to bring out the very best in me. He gave me credit for my intelligence.