117 result(s) for Ethel Waters Quotes.
"I never was one to ask the time of day."
"I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else."
"I never take myself too seriously."
"All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic."
"I made the last $10 stretch and the children were never aware of how poor we were."
"I guess I just never tried to imitate anybody else."
"I mean, I never really experienced what you would call Hollywood."
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"The accident was happened in 1938. It was inevitable."
"I just loved playing music and falling in love."
"My mother had been a church soloist and my father was a deacon and a poet."
"When you're singin' you've got the floor. The audience is yours."
"I never was a blue-eyed, fair-haired beauty."
"I understood immediately. She was there looking for God."
"By the time you're 80 years old you've learned everything."
"No one was ever meant to remember or invent what he did with every cent."
"I just had a talent for waking up the audience."
"Never let an old flame burn you twice."
"If you want to write it just get up and write."
"I never walked the streets after 10 o'clock, but everybody said, 'That's wrong.' If it was so wrong to be out on the streets after 10 o'clock, why did they have lights?"
"I don't have faith in the music business; I don't have faith in it being anything more than a means to get my voice out there."
"To be a success, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart."
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"I came into the world black, naked, and ugly. And no matter how much I accumulate here, it's a short journey. I will go out of this world black, naked, and ugly. So I enjoy life."
"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."
"Nobody knows what you want except you, and no one will be as sorry as you if you don't get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell."
"A person is only as good as their word."
"I just let the music dictate how it's supposed to go. I mean, I don't give the music words.... I let the music tell me what to do. That's the leader, it's the music."
"God heals, and the doctor takes the fee."
"My business is to show life at its best and at its worst. I wouldn't dare to show anybody who has not known death how to die."
"He doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. In fact, I just saw his grades and he doesn't know the meaning of a lot of words."
"I don't know him from Adam, and it's just as well because I talk to him and he won't talk back."
"I don't know what the opposition is, but the fact still remains, when you see me that the Negroes are not laughable, and that there are positive qualities in us that are thoroughly American. We built this nation, and we can make it a good nation."
"Every person on this earth comes from the heart of a woman. Women have spent their lives nurturing us, and teaching us what we need to know."
"Why have I gone from being overjoyed at the possibilities of an age of reason to being almost a stranger to myself? It happened because this age forgot reason. It threw out that goal we all live for: a chance to be one with those 'we hold dear'."
"You've got to take the bitter with the sour."
"If a man teaches his son to be good, he talks to him and he takes him with him to places, he gave him his life and future status. And he'll know that his son is his."
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"My song ‘Stormy Weather' was all it was, when I first sang it. It was a sail. It was myself, floating postcards back to a smokestack. That's all it was."
"I had a mother who read to me every day until I could read myself. We’re still reading now."
"Fairy tales might be a woman's way of dealing with having children in the first place. We imagine that children get eaten by dragons, instead of grown up and leaving us. Because our hearts would die without them, yet they do die."
"I am somebody because God don’t make no junk."
"I never was a child. I never was coddled, or liked, or understood by my family."
"I’ve come a long way from the cotton fields of yankdom."
"My man - he liked me... trying something big was a way of getting even with everything in the world that had hurt me."
"I have been in the kitchen and I have been in the boudoir, but baby… ain’t nobody gonna stop me from singing!"
"I never stop to plan. I take things step by step."
"Cherish your humanity, for you’re an agent of God’s peace."
"Don't curse the darkness – light a candle."
"God don’t mean people to own people."
"We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future."
"I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime."
"We are all of us, unique, all different, none disposable – only valuable."
"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!"
"Little drops of water, Little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean And the pleasant land. So the little moments, Humble though they be, Make the mighty ages Of eternity."
"I am raging mad because I am just a [color] woman made into a chorus girl. This character tells 'Cadillac flat foot Hazel Scott' inadequate stories, but I realize that opportunity came to me a bit late, and I must do with the muchness of my talents."
"One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an earful of cider."
"I ain’t fit to live with other folks. I ain’t never gonna be. I […] can’t fight it no more."
"He touched me! Oh, he touched me. And oh, the joy that floods my soul!"
"I just as soon chop off my head and silly to the steamboat it floated off on, as put myself in a life like that."
"True art is not made for yourself - you realize this. It affects people; it moves them, and it gives them renewed fan for their passion, and things around them."
"I have met, and, by God, if I ain't in the mood, it's tough."
"I never was a rocker. The minute I heard Fats Domino, I knew that he had something I needed."
"I think it's stupid for a country to try and form a government in exclusion of others."
"I always think if you have to cook once, it should feed you twice."
"My mother spoke highly of me, and asked me to always be proud of myself."
"I don't know why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn't make sense."
"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend."
"I never hurt nobody but myself, and that's nobody's business but my own."
"I never was a blues singer, but I used to make the blues people. If you played with me, you had to be in the blues spirit."
"I don't think people have any right to intrude in your life, but they do. I would like people to be more caring."
"Every man is entitled to his own mystery."
"One is often so busy doing life that it's easy to avoid evaluating whether you're putting your energy in the right places."
"Once in a while I get the spa thing, but it's not what I really love."
"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater wishes and so on."
"One comes to learn that everyday there can be a miracle, or a surprise from doing life."
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."
"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."
"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
"I'm not playing a role. I'm being myself, whatever the heck that is."
"I think it's great when young girls create their own identity."
"I've never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard."
"I've found that you don't really have to be somebody else in order to be successful."
"I always thought of myself as a singer. As a jazz singer, I couldn't make as pretty a presentation as Nat Cole can."
"I've been through it all, baby, I'm mother courage."
"I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be."
"I was never too proud to clean a toilet. I've done everything in the theater except eat."
"Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one."
"I always consider myself playing the co-star in the plots of my life."
"My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end, everything will end up in nothing?"
"I was never one to seek the limelight. I am happy to stay in the background, as long as the work gets done."
"I'd been told of the amazing things Harvey Weinstein could do for one's career, as long as one paid the price."
"His stem balls wonderin me."
"Life is the way to manage the most difficult things in your life."
"You feel lost without someone else giving you direction."
"Being natural is what you are."
"When you believe in yourself, everything else falls into place."
"Living a lazy life doesn't make you happier."
"Understanding others is the key to understanding yourself."
"I'm not playing a role. I'm being myself, whatever the hell that is."
"I never was one for pretense. If I'm happy, I show it. If I'm mad, I show it. It's that simple."
"I'm grateful for all the highs and lows in my life. They've made me who I am."
"Don't wait for things to happen. Make them happen for yourself."
"Life's too short to waste time on things that don't matter."
"I've learned to be strong because I had to be. It's made me unstoppable."
"You gotta love yourself before you can truly love others."
"I don't need anyone's permission to be who I am."
"Success is not about what you have, but who you are."
"Embrace your uniqueness. It's what sets you apart from the rest."
"Don't be afraid to speak your truth, even if your voice shakes."
"You don't have to be perfect to be amazing."
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
"It's never too late to start over. Every day is a new beginning."
"Happiness is a choice. Choose it every day."
"You are capable of more than you know. Don't underestimate yourself."
"There is beauty in simplicity. Live a simple life filled with love and joy."
"Don't dwell on the past. Focus on creating a brighter future."
"Stand up for what you believe in, even if you stand alone."
"You have the power to change the world, starting with yourself."
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