I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don't recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.
— Taylor Swift
I don't live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free.
I think I've developed, as many people do, this sense of, 'Don't say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.'
People like music when they're in love, but they don't need it as much. You need music when you're missing someone or you're pining for someone or you're forgetting someone or you're trying to process what just happened.
'Mean' is a song I wrote about somebody who wrote things that were so mean so many times that it would ruin my day. Then it would ruin the next day. And it would level me so many times, I just felt like I was being hit in the face every time this person would take to their computer.
I've never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that - of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.
I think about food literally all day every day. It's a thing.
I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.
I love Karlie Kloss. I want to bake cookies with her!
I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, 'Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we'll talk.'
I've been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what's going on in their love lives.
I've always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.
Every single one of the guys that I've written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans.
I don't have big security guards. I don't have an entourage.
A lot of people ask me, 'How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?' It's because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they're gonna say no to you, at least they're gonna be polite about it.
I became a people-watcher when I lost all my friends when I was 12.
Rebellion is what you make of it. When you've been on a tour bus for two months straight, and then you get in your car and drive wherever you want, that can feel rebellious.
The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.
My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It's when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.
Most of my fans, if you were to look on their iPods, you'd see every possible genre of music represented in some capacity.
I can imagine it's hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn't know.
'The Story of Us' is about running into someone I had been in a relationship with at an awards show, and we were seated a few seats away from each other. I just wanted to say to him, 'Is this killing you? Because it's killing me.' But I didn't. Because I couldn't. Because we both had these silent shields up.
Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don't know why this one is different, but it is. You don't know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can't stop thinking about it.
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, auditioning for Broadway was my dream.
My dad is a Chatty Cathy, the social butterfly; friendly; knows everybody in the whole world by six degrees; tells me that every performance is the greatest he's ever seen, every new outfit is the coolest. Constant cheerleader.
When you say, 'I spent my summers at the Jersey Shore,' people always say, 'Oh, really?' They think of the TV show. So I just say, 'A cute little harbor town in New Jersey.'
I didn't know what a stockbroker was when I was eight, but I would just tell everybody that's what I was going to be.
I don't want people to think of me as sexy.
There are so many emotions that you're feeling, you can get stifled by them if you're feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment - one simple, simple feeling - and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.
I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don't know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.
It's true that I've never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.
When I listen to a song, I don't say, 'Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.' I'm thinking, 'That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.'
I think when people make a record with a goal in mind - like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature - that gets in the way of writing great songs.
I'm interested in Jackson Pollock's kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it's nothing, and yet it's incredible.
I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.
The song 'Innocent' is a song that I wrote about something that really, really emotionally impacted me.
It's dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you're me. Or when you're anyone in the public eye.
As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.
I'm not really that girl who dreams about her wedding day.
Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.
When I look at acting careers that I really admire, I see that it's been a precise decision-making process for these people. They make decisions based on what they love, and they do only the things that they are passionate about. They play only characters that they can't stop thinking about.
People don't usually compliment your character.
I have been singing randomly, obsessively, obnoxiously for as long as I can remember.
I don't believe in endorsing a product that you don't want to endorse.
It doesn't bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs - because at least they're looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.
One of the things people don't really recognise about the similarities between country and hip-hop is that they're celebrations of pride in a lifestyle.
If you're trying too hard to be the girl next door, you're not going to be.
I was from a small town, and nobody really expects you to leave, especially before you graduate. That doesn't happen.
I've always strived to be successful, not famous.
I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.
