Taylor Swift Quotes

Am I R&B because I'm black? Am I pop because I have a song called 'Milkshake'? Or can I just be who the hell I am? Good Lord, people make it seem like we're doing heart transplants here, but we're just making music!

China is important to the world in that they are a force and on the move. Exposing them to figurative art opens up a potential for artistic expression far greater than anyone would ever have dreamed possible until today. It is this very spirit of the struggle and determination to triumph that inspires creative expression.

I started making music that I loved and was passionate and excited about, but it was really cool when I started touring to realize it's an extremely diverse group of people who come out. In the front row, I'll have everyone from a little girl in a frilly tutu, to rockers and gamers and older couples. I love it that it's just everybody.

We talk too much of black art when we should be talking about art, just art. Black composers must be free to write rondos and fugues, not only protest songs.

I don't like to focus on just hip-hop because with hip-hop, I can only do so much; with a vocalist, I can only do so much, but the limitations are varying.

What I love about my audience is it's extremely diverse as far as the ethnicities and the ages that show up.

Country's opened its boundaries so wide that it embraces everything, and it gives everybody this new freedom to create now.

Hollywood allows you to go and express yourself.

The only advice we gave Richie Faulkner was we wanted Richie to be his own guy. You have to let your musicians in your band be who they are.

You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

['Fire and Rain'] is sort of almost uncomfortably close. Almost confessional. The reason I could write a song like that at that point, and probably couldn't now, is that I didn't have any sense that anyone would hear it. I started writing the song while I was in London...and I was totally unknown.... So I assumed that they would never be heard. I could just write or say anything I wanted. Now I'm very aware, and I have to deal with my stage fright and my anxiety about people examining or judging it. The idea that people will pass judgment on it is not a useful thought.

All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is.

At a certain point, I realized that I could draw anything, and there was nothing I should avoid - I could make it work. That's opened me up to being able to be much more comfortable telling any kind of story.

One of the wonderful things about the actor's life is that's what we have the opportunity to do; we bring all these aspects of ourselves and of our personal lives into the work that we do.

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.

Writing just for the hell of it is heaven.

As a writer, I don't think it's my responsibility to make a point. I just write and hope there's someone who'll like it.

When I started making music, I made music in a very commercial space and I didn't have room to really explore things on my own terms. It took me awhile to create a little bubble where I could explore other things, and new things. When I did that, my tools were songwriting and arranging.

An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.

I'm like a movie director, so wherever I feel that I need to go over this type of beat, that's what I'm going to do, that's where I'm going to go.

There's such a freedom about being an artist... You're not accountable - you're this renegade thing.

You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard.

An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.

When I am creating art, I have absolutely no social responsibility. It's like dreaming.

I think '60s are appealing to creative people, because it seemed to be a time of endless possibilities, when the boundaries of what could be considered popular culture were being expanded almost by the week. It doesn't feel like that anymore. At times, I wish it were so. Radio is a perfect example; good God, I mean, back then the most interesting songs were also hits, and that's just not true anymore. It hasn't been true in a long time.