Top 140 Mariah Carey Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “I’m not a subscriber to walking into large corporate entities that I have to walk into and be waiting in line, because then I have to stand there.”

— Mariah Carey

102. “I was bound to be a beauty school dropout.”

— Mariah Carey

103. “I’ve been working on my craft for a long time. People never want to let go of the whole ‘Glitter,‘... I’m like, ‘It’s eight years later, people. Let’s move on.”

— Mariah Carey

104. “I can do a reddish-brown or brown lip, but not a bright red. I just don’t look good in it. Over the years you learn certain things that don’t look good on you, and that’s one of them for me.”

— Mariah Carey

105. “Over and over I have tried to be her fire department, financing treatments and paying for stays in premium rehabs. But even with substantial resources, there is no way to rescue someone who doesn’t realize they’re burning.”

— Mariah Carey

106. “I was into it. After all, I sincerely thought I would be with Tommy forever and that the home we would make together would be just as timeless, everlasting, and spectacular as the music we were creating – behind which, of course, I was also the creative force. And spectacular it was. We even had a ballroom. I was in my early twenties, with my own ballroom!”

— Mariah Carey

107. “Because I was never alone, I had no comprehension of the impact my music and I were making on the outside world. I never had time to think or reflect. I now believe that this was completely by design. Did Tommy know I would be easier to control if I were kept ignorant of the full scope of my power?”

— Mariah Carey

108. “I loved Jordan. He was one of the greatest athletes of our time.”

— Mariah Carey

109. “There was a studio with sophisticated recording equipment, but there was also very sophisticated security equipment outfitted throughout the house – listening devices, motion-detecting cameras – recording my every move.”

— Mariah Carey

110. “I understand people want to hold on to their roots.”

— Mariah Carey

111. “No matter how prime the real estate, how grandiose the structure, if it’s designed to monitor movement and contain the human spirit, it will serve only to diminish and demoralize those held inside.”

— Mariah Carey

112. “I was a fish out of water, and though I survived it, I knew that no one there really cared about me, and I certainly knew I wasn’t staying.”

— Mariah Carey

113. “He was the one who cried during some of our more explosive fights. And I would end up consoling him, completely abandoning my needs, my pain. It was ruthlessly manipulative.”

— Mariah Carey

114. “I was a wayward child With the weight of the world That I held deep inside. Life was a winding road And I learned many things Little ones shouldn’t know.”

— Mariah Carey

115. “I became an expert in sconces – sconces, dahling!”

— Mariah Carey

116. “You don’t have to be doing vocal acrobatics or singing all over the scale to have soul.”

— Mariah Carey

117. “The first time Tommy called, he hung up. But he didn’t give up. He called back and this time left a curt and serious-sounding message: “Tommy Mottola. CBS. Sony Records.” He left a number. “Call me back.”

— Mariah Carey

118. “Still vibrating with rage, he slammed his fist on the table and announced, “I just want everybody to know that THANKSGIVING IS CANCELLED!”

— Mariah Carey

119. “The minute I started addressing my feelings, I actually came out of very negative situations.”

— Mariah Carey

120. “Especially since I stared studying acting, I feel like I’m always super-aware of my emotions and my feelings and what’s going on with me at every moment.”

— Mariah Carey

121. “I became his new star just as he was beginning a huge position at a new label, so he had the influence to clear the runway for my ascension into the sky. He was willing to move heaven and earth to make me successful. I recognized and respected that power.”

— Mariah Carey

122. “My brother was shattered into pieces, scattered to the wind, and our father’s outdated tools of militaristic discipline were inadequate to help him collect himself and prepare him for manhood.”

— Mariah Carey

123. “Let it all dissipate And I tried to forget As I closed my eyes.”

— Mariah Carey

124. “Strange how death can make people forgive those who trespassed against them and their children.”

— Mariah Carey

125. “The international music scene has grown so much, and America is sort of following that.”

— Mariah Carey

126. “But I was not swept off my feet, and trust and believe me, Tommy Mottola was no Prince Charming.”

— Mariah Carey

127. “I performed “Emotions” at the MTV Video Music Awards and the Soul Train Music Awards. And here I was again, about to hit another stage, and somehow I had no clue that I was famous.”

— Mariah Carey

128. “After a childhood of being uprooted and plopped into all kinds of precarious living arrangements, I finally had the chance to build my own, from the foundation. I got excited. I got into it.”

— Mariah Carey

129. “I had no idea how to handle what was going on. It was all of them against me. They had planned it. They fooled me into thinking they actually liked me.”

— Mariah Carey

130. “For most of my childhood I was caught between my brother’s fury and my mother’s sad searching.”

— Mariah Carey

131. “You don’t have to do this,” they all said. But I truly believed I had to. I saw no way out. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d learned how to endure disappointment and carry on, to make the best of things and keep working. I certainly knew how to live with fear. I didn’t know life without fear.”

— Mariah Carey

132. “I didn’t know that our dream mansion would come with an unfathomable thirty-million-dollar price tag.”

— Mariah Carey

133. “Every weekend, Tommy would turn off the radio that was my lifeline and take a moment of silence before popping in one of his beloved Frank Sinatra CDs. What a tragic metaphor, listening to Tommy hum “My Way” as he drove us back to my captivity.”

— Mariah Carey

134. “I noticed the cops too, standing there, unfazed, in the pulsing midst of the energy and excitement. It was one thing to be informed, but quite another to see with my own eyes, hear with my own ears, and feel in my soul the reaction from real people to me and my music. What I felt that night in Schenectady was not idol worship, it was love. It was the kind of love that comes from honest connection and recognition.”

— Mariah Carey

135. “It was the first time I felt safe enough to go back and peek in on Mariah, the little one, and recognize what she had survived. And suddenly, the first verse and chorus of “Close My Eyes” came to me:.”

— Mariah Carey

136. “But I knew some things he didn’t know too, particularly when it came to trends and popular culture, which I suspect made him feel threatened. He seemed threatened by anything he couldn’t control.”

— Mariah Carey

137. “I also insisted on paying half of all the costs. I wanted it to be my house.”

— Mariah Carey

138. “I was easy to manipulate, but the dynamic of my relationship with Tommy was complex. In many ways, Tommy protected me from my dysfunctional family, but he went to the extreme: he controlled and patrolled me.”

— Mariah Carey

139. “Our relationship was always platonic and never got weird. After he heard me sing, Will believed in my talent. He took me with him to Def Jam Recordings, the hottest new hip-hop label at the time, where he was signed.”

— Mariah Carey

140. “And there is a lot of respect due to him. He was a visionary music executive who fearlessly and ferociously dragged his visions into reality. He believed in me, ruthlessly. “You’re the most talented person I’ve ever met,” he would say to me. “You can be as big as Michael Jackson.”

— Mariah Carey

141. “I was spending less and less time at my Chelsea apartment and began spending most nights with him. Soon, I felt pressure from Tommy to give up my place, and against my better instincts, I gave.”

— Mariah Carey

142. “Heartbroken and in tears over the shocking death of my friend, the incomparable Ms. Whitney Houston. My heartfelt condolences to Whitney’s family and to all her millions of fans throughout the world. She will never be forgotten as one of the greatest voices to ever grace the earth.”

— Mariah Carey

143. “I have memories of Australia that I’ll just never ever get over.”

— Mariah Carey

144. “I don’t think anyone knows as much about what’s right for me as I do.”

— Mariah Carey