Ethel Waters

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. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#business #comforts #enough #live #long

Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#childhood #drinking #greatest #influence #lust

My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#any #could #family #instruments #sing

Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#exactly #faults #human #human beings #members

New York is only 97 miles from Philadelphia but was the Big Time as no other American city has ever been. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#been #big #big time #city #ever

No one in the world can beat Ella Fitzgerald as a riff singer. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#ella #ella fitzgerald #fitzgerald #riff #singer

Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#comes #dew #down #earth #flowers

Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#frenzy #me #mother #release #she

The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn't come down. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#big #came #come #compliment #down

The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#being #every #features #gloves #i