I wanted to be with the kind of people Id grown up with, but you cant go back to them and be one of them again, no matter how hard you try. – Ethel Waters
We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can. – Ethel Waters
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
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. – Ethel Waters