"Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go"
About this Quote
The phrasing is deceptively childlike, almost diary-simple, which is exactly how pop smuggles complexity past our defenses. “Always” and “everywhere” are absolutes; they make the sensation inescapable. That’s the subtext: fame and longing can be indistinguishable. When you’re Mariah Carey, desire isn’t a quiet, interior thing. It becomes ambient - in the room, in the street, in the headlines. Even joy arrives with pressure.
Context matters: Carey’s late-90s/early-2000s work is steeped in reinvention, a public narrative of control wrestled back through softness. Butterflies signal metamorphosis, but also fragility; they’re beautiful precisely because they can be crushed. The line holds that tension: empowerment that feels like being hunted by your own feelings, and by everyone else’s projections, too.
Quote Details
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Carey, Mariah. (2026, January 15). Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/butterflies-are-always-following-me-everywhere-i-152332/
Chicago Style
Carey, Mariah. "Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/butterflies-are-always-following-me-everywhere-i-152332/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Butterflies are always following me, everywhere I go." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/butterflies-are-always-following-me-everywhere-i-152332/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.







