Quotes By Ethel Waters

When you dominate other people's emotions, the time has to come when you will have to pay, and heavily, for that privilege.

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.

There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.

Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk.

I've never been able to feel that there is anything undignified about making your living by the sweat of your brow.

There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.

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.

I never was coddled, or liked, or understood by my family.

We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.