45 Mariah Carey Quotes

* I'm not one of those people that goes into details of my personal life on national TV to get attention. Some things are better left unsaid.

* I try not to be a jerk. I really do. I try to be nice and cordial.

* A lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and I don't think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time.

* You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, 'I'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself.'

* Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go.

* One day I promised God that if he would give me my voice back I would never smoke again. I got three octaves back after quitting. 

* Forget the image, forget the ensemble, forget the rumours, forget the short skirts, the big hair, whatever! I owe this to the fans and I will never forget you so I want to accept this award on behalf of all of you. 

* Never, never listen to anybody that try to discourage you.

* This is for all of you out there tonight, reaching for a dream - don't ever give up! Never ever listen to anyone, when they try to discourage you, because they do that, believe me!

* I've seen the real extreme diva behaviour and I don't think that's who I am.

* I've seen other artists put out movies that went straight to DVD, and no one cared. Maybe their own fans bought the thing, and that was fine.

* I think certain people like to torture me because they think I've had it easier than I actually have and they think: 'Oh, she's got this, she's got that, she's always had everything perfect,' and it's sooo not true.

* My mother is Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan, and me - I'm tan, I guess.

* In this world, I call the shots and I think I know best.

* Pregnancy was probably the best and the hardest thing I'll ever go through. I know for a lot of women, it can be wonderful and relatively easy.

* I'm not vain, I'm insecure.

* Basically, I started singing when I started talking. Music has just been my saving grace my whole life.

* I don't think anyone knows as much about what's right for me as I do.

* People are like, 'What is your whole obsession with butterflies?' I'm like, 'I'm not obsessed. I like them. Can't anybody like something?'

* I really rebel against authority.

* I've been blessed to live my dream more than half my life, so I want help give that back to someone else.

* It's hard to be someone that people talk about and write about, you know? They don't know me.

* I do not think I reinvent myself. Wearing my hair differently or changing my style of dress is playing dress-up. I don't take it too seriously.

* If critics have problems with my personal life, it's their problem. Anybody with half a brain would realize that it's the charts that count.

* You really just want to know that somebody loves you for you. Sometimes you feel like an ATM machine with a wig on it.

* People are constantly asking me if I'm pregnant, but I don't like to talk about it too much. I just think about it as the next phase. We'll see.

* I'm very hard on myself and I have too many issues.

* I am very insecure about my looks, and I always have been because of being mixed race.

* I used to be able to slim down just by exercising more, but that's changed.

* But I think I'm a nice friend and a good person, and I try to do my work as best I can.

* I don't mind being compared to Whitney, there are people miles worse to be compared to.

* I work myself into the ground.

* Since having the babies, I realize that 90 percent of losing weight is my diet.

* I definitely feel more complete than before. There's a void you have when you don't feel you've found the other part of who you are, so I'm in a different place now and that's nice to experience.

* My father identified as a black man. No one asked him because he was clearly black. But people always ask me. If we were together, people would look at us in a really strange way. It sucked. As a little girl I had blond hair and they'd look at me, look at him, and be disgusted.

* The best part of making music, for me, is collaborating and working with new people and fresh sounds and all those things that gets people excited to continue in this business that we all love so much.

* I work myself into the ground. But I think I'm a nice friend and a good person, and I try to do my work as best I can.

* I always felt like the rug could be pulled out from under me at anytime. And coming from a racially mixed background, I always felt like I didn't really fit in anywhere.

* I hope to be around past the 90's. I don't want to just be categorized as one of this era. My goal is to have a career that stands.

* I understand people want to hold on to their roots.

* My heart has never been broken, I've never broken anyone else's.