Ethel Quotes & Sayings

Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway. — Ethel Merman

Any audience that gets a laugh out of me gets it while I'm facing them. — Ethel Merman

[Cole Porter] sang like a hinge. — Ethel Merman

If you take passionate interest in a subject, it is hard not to believe yourself specially equipped for it. — Ethel Smyth

Ethel Merman would stay with a show for years and tour with it. So would Mary Martin, the great stars. They recognized the value of that success and nurtured it. Now, you come from Hollywood, you play 12 weeks and go away. I don't think that's the best policy. — Harold Prince

All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this one is ferocious as well. Of course, if you look upon the work of the revolutionist as the mere wresting of certain definite concessions from the government, then the secret sect and the knife must seem to you the best weapons, for there is nothing else which all governments so dread. But if you think, as I do, that to force the government's hand is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end, and that what we really need to reform is the relation between man and man, then you must go differently to work. Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood is not the way to raise the value they put on human life. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

There is no case which calls for injustice; and to condemn a civilian by the judgment of a secret military tribunal is both unjust and illegal. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

I have always been psychic. The walls of any room I walk into talk to me. — Ethel Waters

If a young dog strays up the aisle during church no one says anything, no one does anything, but, none the less, he soon becomes aware that something is wrong. Even so, as the distance between myself and the hearthrug diminished, did I become aware that something was very wrong indeed. — Ethel Smyth

Now, I feel that if somebody looks through all the numbers through all those years, they will find one for Julius Rosenberg, and it is worth finding if it is such an important issue. — Julius And Ethel Rosenberg

The tragedy in the lives of the people is in what does not happen, rather than in what does happen -in all they do not realise.

Ethel Carnie -Miss Nobody — Ethel Carnie Holdsworth

I have plenty of invitations to go places, lots to do. If I'm not working, I go to have my hair taken care of and work at needlepoint. — Ethel Merman

I'm not afraid to die. I'm looking forward to it. I know the Lord has His arms wrapped around this big sparrow. — Ethel Waters

Of my four marriages, the one to Bob Levitt is the only one I don't regret. — Ethel Merman

We had expected three cots in our room, but found one large lumpy bed, a very worn carpet and a single overhead light. "You mean this is what these people got out of their revolution?" Martha daintily picked her way around the room. "Someone should tell them that they're about due for another." She wrinkled her pretty face in distaste. Ethel — Maya Angelou

The bad principle is that any man should hold over another the power to bind and loose. It's a false relationship to stand in towards one's fellows — Ethel Lilian Voynich

[At age 76:] A good life is like a good play
it has to have a satisfying and exciting third act. — Ethel Barrymore

The arts are not just instantaneous pleasure - if you don't like it, the artist is wrong. I belong to the generation which says if you don't like it, you don't understand and you ought to find out. — Ethel Barrymore

We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do. — Ethel Barrett

Quite a small spoke is enough to stop a wheel - even a mighty big wheel - if it's going too fast. — Ethel M. Dell

But her angry feminism had set as hard as concrete during years of living alongside the tough, hardworking, dirt-poor women of London's East End. Men often told a fairy tale in which there was a division of labor in families, the man going out to earn money, the woman looking after home and children. Reality was different. Most of the women Ethel knew worked twelve hours a day and looked after home and children as well. Underfed, overworked, living in hovels, and dressed in rags, they could still sing songs and laugh and love their children. In Ethel's view one of those women had more right to vote than any ten men. — Ken Follett

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. — Ethel Mumford

The training of children is such a serous thing, and it means so much to them to be surrounded from the very beginning with good influences, that I should have thought the holier a man's vocation and the purer his life, the more fit he is to be a father — Ethel Lilian Voynich

I haven't hurt you ... if I have, it's the faithful wound of a friend. — Ethel M. Dell

My dream dinner party guests would be Ethel Kennedy, Truman Capote and Hunter S. Thompson. — Dylan Penn

I am known to be able to take care of myself when I become angry. I don't mince words. — Ethel Merman

There's such a thing as theater discipline. One player doesn't appropriate another's inventions. — Ethel Merman

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

I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me. — Ethel Merman

The self-made man is often proud of a poor job. — Ethel Mumford

I wasn't one to usually show off Lucy and Ethel because I was self-conscious of them, but money was money. — Mariana Zapata

If you do a musical, it's really thrilling and it's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding. I would say, for me, what I like best is what I do, which is, I call it vaudeville, I call it live, I call it in concert, I call it what Bette Midler does, and what Garland did for years, and Ethel Merman. — Debbie Reynolds

It has been an ache and a joy both to look over this big shoulder of mine at all my yesterdays. — Ethel Waters

Whenever I write for hotel reservations, I always enclose a set of rules I have made for the hotels. — Ethel Waters

I preferred delivering my performance in person. I liked to be in control. You couldn't be in films. — Ethel Merman

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

If you have found the way of sacrifice, the way that leads to peace; if you have joined with loving comrades to bring deliverance to them that weep and mourn in secret; then see to it that your soul be free from envy and passion and your heart as an altar where the sacred fire burns eternally. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

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

All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic. — Ethel Waters

Who's happy these days? — Ethel Merman

Life Insurance Motto - Robbing the widows early and orphan. — Ethel Mumford

I'll admit - I was honored to be on the cover of Time. — Ethel Merman

I went to the doctor," said the woman next to Ethel. "I said to him, 'I've got an itchy twat.'"
[ ... ]
She went on: "The doctor says to me, he goes, 'You shouldn't say that, it's a rude word.'"
[ ... ]
"I says to him, 'What should I say, then, doctor?' He says to me, 'Say you've got an itchy finger.'"
[ ... ]
"He says to me, 'Do your finger itch you all the time, Mrs. Perkins, or just now and again?'"
Mildred paused, and the women were silent, waiting for the punch line.
"I says, 'No, doctor, only when I piss through it. — Ken Follett

When I came to know Greek art I instantly understood that excess and perfection are enemies; yet on the other hand this world and the millions of worlds around us live by fire ... ! — Ethel Smyth

There are four types of students: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer, and the sieve. The sponge, which soaks up everything; the funnel, which takes in at one end and lets out at the other; the strainer, which permits the wine to pass out and retains the lees; and the sieve, which separates the bran from the fine flour. — Ethel Percy Andrus

I was at dinner with Gene Wilder and imitated Ethel Barrymore for everyone. — Dom DeLuise

The doors of Opportunity are marked 'Push' and 'Pull'. — Ethel Mumford

I feel I must fight for [my music], because I want women to turn their minds to big and difficult jobs; not just to go on hugging the shore, afraid to put out to sea. — Ethel Smyth

In this month he had been too happy to sin much — Ethel Lilian Voynich

There had to be a hysteria and a fear sent through America in order to get increased war budgets. — Julius And Ethel Rosenberg

We are not martyrs or heroes, nor do we wish to be. We do not want to die. We are young, too young, for death. We long to see our two young sons, Michael and Robert, grown to full
manhood...We desire some day to be restored to a society where we can contribute
our energies toward building a world where all shall have peace, bread and roses.
Yes, we wish to live, but in the simple dignity that clothes only those who have been
honest with themselves and their fellow men. — Ethel Rosenberg

God doesn't make junk — Ethel Waters

The majority of critical, and plenty of uncritical, readers find quotations a bore. — Ethel Smyth

Your power comes from the songs. — Ethel Wilson

The hand of the Lord is heavy. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

We are born into this world with clenched fists, we leave it with fingers apart- preaching the lesson that you take nothing with you. — Ethel Percy Andrus

The worst thing about cynicism is its truth. — Ethel Mumford

I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out. — Ethel Waters

I am purely evil;
Hear the thrum
of my evil engine;
Evilly I come.
The stars are thick as flowers
In the meadows of July;
A fine night for murder
Winging through the sky. — Ethel Mannin

If you are going to say a thing the substance of which is a big pill for your readers to swallow, there is no use in frightening them at the beginning by the form. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

I've made a wonderful living playing that theatrical character - the professional brassy dame. — Ethel Merman

I dare say you will think it an absurd prejudice; but a human body, to me, is a sacred thing; I don't like to see it treated irreverently and made hideous. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

Eisenhower was my war hero and the President I admire and respect most. — Ethel Merman

Everything's coming up roses - for me. — Ethel Merman

Always remember that we were innocent and could not wrong our conscience. -- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, in their last letter to their sons, June 19, 1953. — Jillian Cantor

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. — Ethel Waters

The face that greeted me, however, was far from welcoming, it was a miniature stick insect of a woman with wiry white hair and enormous glasses that emphasized her heavily wrinkled face. She blinked twice and looked me up and down. By the look on her face, she wasn't that impressed with what she saw. "Who is it, Ethel?"
She responded, "It's some homeless woman. She looks like she needs money and a good wash."
And I thought I'd already reached the lowest point of my day. — Suzanne Kelman

If we lose the war, our creditors - mainly Americans - will go bankrupt. And if we win, we'll make the Germans pay. 'Reparations' is the word they use." "How will they manage it?" "They will starve. But nobody cares what happens to the losers. Anyway, the Germans did the same to the French in 1871." He stood up and put his cup in the kitchen sink. "So you see why we can't make peace with Germany. Who then would pay the bill?" Ethel was aghast. "And so we have to keep sending boys to die in the trenches. Because we can't pay the bill. Poor Billy. What a wicked world we live in." "But — Ken Follett

No doubt other writers have often put a thing more brilliantly, more subtly than even a very cunning artist in words can hope to emulate, a supreme phrase being a bit of luck that only happens now and then. And inasmuch as the condiments and secret travail of human nature are always the same, and that certain psychological moments must ever and ever recur, what more tempting than to pin down such a moment with the blow of a borrowed hammer? — Ethel Smyth

We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out. — Ethel Waters

Fundamentally I feel that there is as much difference between the stage and the films as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both. — Ethel Barrymore

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

I mentioned that I was thinking of getting out of the business after Call Me Madam. I thought maybe I should become a homebody. — Ethel Merman

I found that a couple of bottles of beer would give me a lift, but the third bottle would sober me up. — Ethel Waters

I take a breath when I have to. — Ethel Merman

Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own. — Ethel Merman

What his son, Marty, never fully understood was that deep down there was an Ethel-shaped hole in Henry's life, and without her, all he felt was the draft of loneliness, cold and sharp, the years slipping away like blood from a wound that never heals. — Jamie Ford

I wouldn't trust any man as far as you can throw a piano. — Ethel Merman

My career at Warner Brothers consisted of one musical short subject. I was running around in a bear skin. Very chic. — Ethel Merman

Ethel said: "Lloyd, there's someone here you may remember-"
Daisy could not restrain herself. She ran to Lloyd and threw herself into his arms. She hugged him. She looked into his green eyes, then kissed his brown cheeks and his broken nose and then his mouth. "I love you, Lloyd," she sad madly. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"I love you, too, Daisy," he said.
Behind her, Daisy heard Ethel's wry voice. "You do remember, I see. — Ken Follett

Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy. — Ethel Barrymore

No one in the world can beat Ella Fitzgerald as a riff singer. — Ethel Waters

So Captain Faith conducted the prince and his mighty captains and men of war into the castle in the very heart of Mansoul. Prince Emmanuel had come home. — Ethel Barrett

Economy is the thief of time. — Ethel Mumford

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. — Ethel Waters

Ethel and Frances found a means for consolation together: travel. — Nancy Carpentier Brown

I have only one offering to give, a broken heart. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

We are all fit for better things than we ever do — Ethel Lilian Voynich

I never was a child. — Ethel Waters

No one is more trustworthy than the repentant sinner who has been found out. — Ethel Smyth

A writer's mind seems to be situated partly in the solar plexus and partly in the head. — Ethel Wilson

Better a live doggerel than a dead sonnet. — Ethel Mumford

In my case, things have pretty much been handed to me. — Ethel Merman

I'm screaming for help and everybody's acting as if I'm singing Ethel Merman covers ... — David Foster Wallace

I never felt I belonged. I was always an outsider. — Ethel Waters

Most of us are degraded in one way or another. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

I love humility in a woman. It's so rare. With man, of course, it is practically extinct. — Ethel M. Dell

Ethel Jackson was the cool side of my pillow when I had a fever. — Lesley Kagen

An ounce of convention is worth a pound of explanation. — Ethel Mumford

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. — Ethel Waters