jillian

1. “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.”

2. “I’ve never felt edgy or cool or sexy. Not one time. It’s not important for girls to be those things. It’s important for girls to be imaginative, intelligent, hardworking, strong, smart, charming.”

3. “After Fearless, I had a lot of people say ‘She’s an 18 year old girl, there’s no way she carried her weight in those writing sessions.’ There was no way I could prove them wrong other than to write my entire next record solo, so that’s what I did.”

4. “If a guy shares his experience in writing, he’s brave. If a woman shares her experience in writing, she’s over-sharing, she’s over-emotional, or she might be crazy.”

5. “I say to Apple with all due respect, it’s not too late to change this policy and change the minds of those in the music industry who will be deeply and gravely affected by this. We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”

6. “If a dude is threatened by the fact that I need security, if they make me feel like I am some sort of princessy diva—that’s a bad sign. I don’t have security to make myself look cool, or like I have an entourage. I have security because there’s a file of stalkers who want to take me home and chain me to a pipe in their basement.”

7. “For a long time I was drawn to—and still am drawn to—people I find very interesting. [But] someone who sits and talks about themselves for an hour, you start to maybe wonder if, rather than trying so hard to be interesting, they could be a little bit more interested.”

8. “I knew some people would hear ‘Blank Space’ and say, See, we were right about her. And at that point, I just figure if you don’t get the joke, you don’t deserve to get the joke.”

9. “With 1989, I was really putting my neck on the line, because I was the one saying I need to change directions musically. And my label and management were the ones saying ‘Are you sure, are you positive? This is risky.’ And I was the one who had to come back every time and say, 'No, this is what we’re doing.’”

10. “The stakes are really high if you mess up, if you slack off and don’t make a good record, if you make mistakes based on the idea that you are larger than life and you can just coast. If you start thinking you’ve got it down, that’s when you run into trouble.”

“What do you want me to know?” I ask. 

“I am good,” He answers, “And I am on the throne.”