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.

I am an isolationist.

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

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.

I'm interested in the psychological exploration of human nature, and it just happens to come in the form of film-making.

I think that, in almost all human beings, there is buried a profound tribal instinct that makes us very susceptible to being aroused to patriotic fervour.