Taylor Swift

I love dresses, and I've definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make ...
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Most of my fans, if you were to look on their iPods, you'd see every possible ...
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One thing I've tried to never do is make wish lists. I try to have a ...
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There are so many emotions that you're feeling, you can get stifled by them if you're ...
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For me, great music doesn't just have to fall into one category or one genre and ...
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A development deal is where they're giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they'll put an album out.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

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.

A lot of the jewelry that I wear are fan gifts because they're so awesome and they give me great presents.

All of my favorite people - people I really trust - none of them were cool in their younger years.

All of my songs are autobiographical.

All of my walls are covered with framed pictures of my friends.

All you need to do to be my friend is like me.

And if you're horrible to me I'm going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That's how I operate.

And, honestly, if somebody wants to criticize me for not being a trainwreck, that's fine with me!

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I'm fully behind.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

Anytime someone tells me that I can't do something, I want to do it more.

As I grow up, the lessons I learn in love and relationships and how we treat each other are hopefully maturing - hopefully.

As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, 'All right, well, I'd like to headline a tour,' and then when I get there, we'll see what my next goal is.

As supportive as my hometown is, in my high school, there are people who would probably walk up to me and punch me in the face. There's a select few that will never like me. They don't like what I stand for. They don't like somebody who stands for being sober, who stands for anything happy. They're going to be negative no matter what.

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

At some point, you grow out of being attracted to that flame that burns you over and over and over again.

But when I hear a great song, I can't help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

But, I've always loved John Mayer and I think T-Pain is brilliant.

Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I've met.

Don't ever call a guy first. The thing they want the most is whatever they can't have. It sounds really juvenile, but it works.

Even if you're happy with the life you've chosen, you're still curious about the other options.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I'm proud of.

Every single one of the guys that I've written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

Factoring in millions of people when I'm writing a song is not a good idea. I don't ever do it.

Faith Hill is a big role model.

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I've never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line's always been really blurred for me. I'll hang out with them after the show. I'll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I'll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

For everything I do, I think about a 6-year-old girl and her mom that I saw at my concert last night. I think about what those two individuals would think if I were at a club last night. I never want to be arrested, and I never want to get a DUI, those are my moral values.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.

For me, great music doesn't just have to fall into one category or one genre and I love appreciating all kinds of music.

For me, 'risky' is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

For me, when I picture the person I want to end up with, I don't think about what their career is, or what they look like. I picture the feeling I get when I'm with them.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn't really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I'm trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

For some reason, I'm really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

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.

Guarding your heart and protecting your dignity are a little bit more important than clarifying the emotions of someone who's only texting you back three words. I've learned that from trying to figure out people who don't deserve to be figured out.

Here's what I've learned about deal-breakers. If you have enough natural chemistry with someone, you overlook every single thing that you said would break the deal.

I always have to be writing.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written... Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn't have much of a social life going on.

I am alone a lot, which is good. I need that time to just be alone after a long day, just decompress. So, I go to either my house or the hotel, or my apartment, or whatever - wherever I am, I go home and I watch TV and I sit there, with my cat, and I just watch TV or go online, check my emails.

I am an over-achiever, and I want to be known for the good things in my life.

I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we're raised as little girls to think that we're a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

I approach love differently now that I know it's hard for it to work out.

I base a lot of decisions on my gut, and going with an independent label was a good one.

I became a people-watcher when I lost all my friends when I was 12.

I believe when it comes to love, there's something intangible about who we are attracted to, and I don't think I have a pattern.

I can imagine it's hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn't know.

I can say I'd honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I've written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

I can't deal with someone wanting to take a relationship backward or needing space or cheating on you. It's a conscious thing, it's a common-sense thing.

I cap myself when I shop, I don't like to spend extravagant amounts on clothes. But, I do get lent clothes for events, it's scary to wear something so expensive, but I feel really pampered.

I created my MySpace page in eighth grade, because that's how all my friends talked to each other, so I made one, too. Then, all of a sudden, my friends started putting my songs on their profiles, and then their relatives, their friends in different states did.

I didn't always have 14,000 people wanting to hang out with me on a Saturday night.

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 didn't want to just be another girl singer. I wanted there to be something that set me apart.

I don't believe in endorsing a product that you don't want to endorse.

I don't compare myself to anyone else, I don't make comments about anyone else because they do what feels right for them, and that's okay by me.

I don't ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It's like, 'Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.'

I don't have a type. I don't have a specific kind of human being. It's just kind of an X-factor of sorts. Everybody I've ever dated has been a case-by-case situation.

I don't have big security guards. I don't have an entourage.

I don't know how to have a normal relationship because I try to act normal and love from a normal place and live a normal life, but there is sort of an abnormal magnifying glass, like telescope lens, on everything that happens.

I don't know if I could do this with the same energy, and in the same way - all the costume changes and glitter and hair and makeup - all the time. When I'm in my 50s, I kind of think I'll want to be in a garden.

I don't like it when people who are young act like they're 40. That's taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you're so mature or whatever - I don't try to act mature. Some people might say I'm mature for my age, but it's not something I'm trying to do, you know? I'm just me.

I don't like to feel like I'm in a club when I'm in my car and I turn on the radio. Anything that ceases to be a song and just sounds like house music kind of stresses me out.

I don't like to feel like I'm some fragile package that has to be shipped by high-priority mail and handled with white gloves.

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 don't mind being pale. In high school, it seemed like everybody cared about being tan all year round, but I haven't really thought about it since then. I don't go to a tanning bed, and I get bored when I lay out. I put sunscreen on when I'm in the sun, and sometimes I get tan, but I don't really think about it very much.

I don't really know that much about love, it turns out.

I don't think I'd ever make an album of just covers because I love writing my own music.

I don't think there's an option for me to fall in love slowly or at medium speed. I either do, or I don't.

I don't want people to think of me as sexy.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn't say in real life.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It's hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It's a natural process.

I felt like my favorite writers have almost musical hooks in their work, whether it's poetry or a hook at the end of a chapter that makes you want to read the next one. And I think that my favorite writers definitely have something musical about what they do, in saying something so relatable and universal and so simple.

I get nervous for everything - literally everything.

I get really restless when I haven't worked for a day and a half. I have a recurring dream that people are lined up next to my bed, waiting for autographs and taking pictures of me!

I get so excited when a song I wrote that's very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

I go to all these photo shoots, and each time I figure out something new about myself and what I want to wear.

I go to Wal-Mart all the time. The one in my hometown of Hendersonville, Tenn., is open 24 hours, so I go there a lot to buy DVDs and stuff like that.

I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.

I have a lot of friends who do what I do. Either they're actresses or singers or things like that.

I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything - diseases, spiders... and people getting tired of me.

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.

I have been singing randomly, obsessively, obnoxiously for as long as I can remember.

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.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

I have so many indie bands on my iPod. What I don't really understand is the attitude that if a band is unknown, they're good, and if they get fans, then you move on to the next band.

I have so many playlists full of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown.

I have this fear of falling in front of large groups of people. That's why I tend not to wear heels.

I have this really high priority on happiness and finding something to be happy about.

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I have to work really hard to get the record deal - I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I haven't had that one great love, which is good. I don't want that to be in the past - I want it to be in the future.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can't imagine going through that. If you know that's going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I'd rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.

I leave the genre labeling to other people. I really do. If I were to think too hard about it, that would stifle you creatively. If you think too hard about who other people want you to be as an artist, it stops you from being who you want to be as an artist.

I like the app where you can make your own memes. I make memes all the time and send them to my friends.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it's a better way of telling the stories.

I like to write about love and love lost because I feel like there are so many different subcategories of emotions that you can possibly delve into.

I like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It's just funny. And wonderful.

I love being a part of the country-music community.

I love dresses, and I've definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

I love hugging people. I still hug everybody in my meet-and-greet lines.

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, 'If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.'

I love Karlie Kloss. I want to bake cookies with her!

I love making buckwheat crepes with ham, Parmesan cheese, and a fried egg on top. It's my go-to breakfast.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

I love the ending of a movie where two people end up together. Preferably if there's rain and an airport or running or a confession of love.

I love the scents of winter! For me, it's all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce.

I love Wiz Khalifa.

I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I've learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience.

I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I've kept that mentality. Just because there's a hurricane going on around you doesn't mean you have to open the window and look at it.

I never want to change so much that people can't recognize me.

I never write about the road. I never write about hotels or anything like that.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I'd just write.

I once went on the most grueling radio tour. Living in hotel rooms, sleeping in the backs of rental cars as my mom drove to three different cities in one day.

I put out one album one week, and I'm already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

I really like Lady GaGa and everything she is for her fans.

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 remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It's just funny.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

I spend a lot of time balancing between faith and disbelief.

I think about food literally all day every day. It's a thing.

I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is - this thing that happens to everyone, so I've heard.

I think every girl's dream is to find a bad boy at the right time, when he wants to not be bad anymore.

I think everyone should approach relationships from the perspective of playing it straight and giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Until he establishes that this is a game. And if it's a game, you need to win. The best thing to do is just walk away from the table.

I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.

I think fearless is having fears but jumping anyway.

I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.

I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you're supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.

I think I have a big fear of things spiraling out of control. Out of control and dangerous and reckless and thoughtless scares me, because people get hurt.

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.'

I think Kenny Chesney or Garth Brooks would be the coolest duet partners. I look up to them so much for their work ethics.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can't get bitter, we can't get jaded.

I think that it's okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn't about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What's the point?

I think that when you're making your way up in the music industry, you have all these heroes and the reasons why they are your heroes. As soon as you get into the industry, your guidelines change a little bit. For me, my heroes now are great people first and great artists second.

I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music 'made it' the same way. It's all different. There's no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.

I think the perfection of love is that it's not perfect.

I think the tiniest little thing can change the course of your day, which can change the course of your year, which can change who you are.

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.

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 think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don't ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It's like, 'Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.'

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you're not interested in them so that they'll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What's he gonna do then? Play the tape forward, how do you keep a guy like that? I don't want to sign up for that.

I think, as far as branching out with acting, it would take something really right on the mark to distract me from music, because music is everything to me.

I try to prepare for everything beyond the extent of preparation.

I try to read as much as I can. I try to read an informative article every day. I try to stay read up on our world issues.

I was from a small town, and nobody really expects you to leave, especially before you graduate. That doesn't happen.

I was never a boy magnet at school. There was always the girl all the guys liked and wanted to date, but it was never me.

I wish all teenagers can filter through songs instead of turning to drugs and alcohol.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don't need to be blonde when I'm 60!

I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.

I wouldn't wear tiny amounts of clothing in my real life so I don't think it's necessary to wear that stuff in photo-shoots.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

I'd like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!

I'd like to think you don't stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I'll talk myself out of it.

If I'm gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That's how it works.

If there's a pregnancy rumor, people will find out it's not true when you wind up not being pregnant, like nine months from now, and if there's a house rumor, they'll find out it's not true when you are actively not ever spotted at that house.

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don't stop, don't put it down.

If you're trying too hard to be the girl next door, you're not going to be.

If you cry over a guy, then your friends can't date him. It can't even be considered.

If you're yelling you're the one who's lost control of the conversation.

I'm 5'11, so when I wear heels, it's definitely a really good view that I have. I'm, like, 6'2 when I wear heels, so I tend to wear cowboy boots a lot.

I'm a girls' girl. I have guy friends, but the problem with having guy friends is, like, I always get linked to them, and they'll end up in a slideshow of people I've apparently dated on the Internet.

I'm a Sagittarius, and one of our major qualities is that we're blindly optimistic.

I'm a songwriter. Everything affects me.

I'm always afraid of failing. I have to quiet that fear if I'm going to get up in the morning.

I'm always worried about everything. Like spiders.

I'm interested in Jackson Pollock's kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it's nothing, and yet it's incredible.

I'm intimidated by the fear of being average.

I'm like 6'2 when I wear heels, so I tend to wear cowboy boots a lot.

I'm never in the same place for more than, like, three days at a time. Things can change from one minute to the next.

I'm not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

I'm not concerned with people seeing me in a certain way. Some people see me as a kid, some people see me as an adult. But I'm seriously not going to complain how anybody sees me, as long as they see me.

I'm not really that girl who dreams about her wedding day.

I'm not the girl who always has a boyfriend. I'm the girl who rarely has a boyfriend.

I'm sick of the tabloids' saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don't like it.

I'm the girl who - I call it girl-next-door-itis - the hot guy is friends with and gets all his relationship advice from but never considers dating.

I'm the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that's horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.

I'm the type of person, I have to study to get an A on the test.

I'm typically single. I'm the girl who - I call it girl-next-door-itis - the hot guy is friends with and gets all his relationship advice from but never considers dating.

I'm very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn't choose.

In a relationship each person should support the other, they should lift each other up.

In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is.

In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I'm always going to feel everything. It's my nature.

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.

It feels kinda weird being back in a high school cause I haven't been in a high school for about a year. So um, it's kinda interesting coming back, and y'know seeing the lockers, with all the signs, the handmade signs, so being in high school again is a little bit strange but in a good way.

It is possible for a woman to be a romantic, but also to be single and to be happy.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn't think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it - though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, 'I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.'