Best Quotes From Taylor Swift's Op-Ed

It sure seems like Taylor Swift had an eventful weekend: She romped around with half the residence of the celebrityverse during her July 4 celebrations, and apparently, she also had to prepare herself for the op-ed she wrote for The Wall Street Journal that came out Monday. Swift's thoughts on the music business's future are plentiful, which is both surprising (who knew Taylor Swift writes op-eds?) and completely understandable (she is a prominent person in said business).

The article, which has Swift's byline, is titled "For Taylor Swift, the Future Of Music Is a Love Story." It all fits pretty well with who Swift's always been publicly, as well as what she's molded herself into in recent years: A romantic, but one who's more recently turned her eyes from literal romance to the world at large. She is one of the world's BFFs, after all.

In this case, Swift channels her persona (or, perhaps, just herself) into tackling a discussion that's been happening since the heyday of Napster: The potential fall of the music industry, as evidenced through perpetually falling music sales. It's interesting to hear Swift talk about this, both as a self-described "Enthusiastic optimist" and as, as Vulture points out, one of the only people still selling millions of albums every time she tries.

Here are some of the most memorable lines from Swift's op-ed:

The TL;DR of it all:

You should know that you're reading the opinion of an enthusiastic optimist: one of the few living souls in the music industry who still believes that the music industry is not dying…it's just coming alive.

On what makes or breaks an album:

In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace.

On claiming your worth:

My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet… is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.

On what makes people buy albums:

In mentioning album sales, I'd like to point out that people are still buying albums, but now they're buying just a few of them. They are buying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart or have made them feel strong or allowed them to feel like they really aren't alone in feeling so alone. It isn't as easy today as it was 20 years ago to have a multiplatinum-selling album, and as artists, that should challenge and motivate us.

A good, beautiful, heartfelt quote. Still worth noting that it's easy for someone like Taylor Swift to say something like that.

On forming a bond with music:

Some artists will be like finding "the one." We will cherish every album they put out until they retire and we will play their music for our children and grandchildren. As an artist, this is the dream bond we hope to establish with our fans. I think the future still holds the possibility for this kind of bond, the one my father has with the Beach Boys and the one my mother has with Carly Simon.

On how she'll be observing all this:

I'll just be sitting back and growing old, watching all of this happen or not happen, all the while trying to maintain a life rooted in this same optimism.

And I'd also like a nice garden.

Gotta love Taylor Swift, the middle-aged cat lady.

You can read the full thing over at the Wall Street Journal .

Image: Taylor Swift/Instagram