On giving an extended focus to 1989: "This album has produced more number ones than any album in the past, so we're just going to go with it. Then I'll feel like I'll need to give people a breather from me because at a certain point they're going to get a little sick of hearing about me, so I'll need to go away for a while then, depending on my gauge on how sick of me they are, I'll decide when to put out the next album."
On the importance of being a songwriter: "Being a songwriter is the reason why I approached all of this with such conviction. I don't think that I would care 1/16th as much if I didn't write every song lyric that you hear me sing. It drives everything, it drives creative ideas about what the music videos are going to be, it drives the production elements that are going to be on tour and the stories I want to tell. It absolutely determines everything; everything's drawn from the lyrics."