Singer Taylor Swift arrives at the 46th Country Music Association Awards in Nashville (Photo : Reuters)

Taylor Swift speaks to NPR's Guy Raz about why her songs are mostly about love and heartbreaks, success and about knowing her flaws.

Taylor Swift is on the top of the world right now. Her latest album "Red" has made it to the top of the charts and is a raging success. Even though the 22 year old singer didn't take home any awards at the CMA Awards Ceremony this year, she remains in top spirits and speaks to NPR's Guy Raz about why her songs are mostly about love and heartbreaks, success and about knowing her flaws.

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When asked why she chose to quote Pablo Neruda's "Love is so short, forgetting is so long" right on the first page of the liner notes and how that became more or less the theme of the record, the singer replied, "It really does. When I read that line, I absolutely connected to it. 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."

Swift also revealed that her confidence is easy to shake and she does suffer a setback each time she receives negative criticism. "My confidence is easy to shake. I am very well aware of all of my flaws. I am aware of all the insecurities that I have. I have a lot of voices in my head constantly telling me I can't do it. I've dealt with that my whole life. And getting up there on stage thousands of times, you're going to have off nights."

"And when you have an off night in front of that many people, and it's pointed out in such a public way, yeah, that gets to you. I feel like, as a songwriter, I can't develop thick skin. I cannot put up protective walls, because it's my job to feel things."

"The kind of magical way that criticism has helped me is that that's another thing that I put into my music. I ended up writing a song called "Mean" about that experience, and about this one particular guy who would not get off my case about it."

"To stand up at the Grammys two years later, to sing that song and get a standing ovation for it, and to win two Grammys for that particular song, I think was the most gratifying experience I've ever had in my life."