Hey there! The fairy tale stuff from JJ was all from the director’s commentary on TFA. Transcription copied from this gifset.

We looked at it like […] a fairy tale. What are the elements that you’re going to see that makes it this genre, this specific genre? […] You’re probably going to have a castle, and a prince and a princess, if you’re looking at a fairy tale. We wanted to give these fundamental, not cosmetic, but prerequisite elements.

— J.J. Abrams, The Force Awakens director commentary

And then the optimistic world stuff was from a podcast from THR, documented in an article here.

“To me, the important thing was not, ‘What are the bones of this thing?’ To me, it was meeting new characters who discover themselves that they are in a universe that is spiritual, that is optimistic and in a world where you meet people that will become your family.”

And then he also talks about romance in a French interview before TFA, detailed here.

Quizzed about the possibility of on-screen romance, he said: ”No doubt, even if I already know I want to approach this project in a different way … We’re only in the initial stages [of making the film] and it’s difficult to talk about it other than to say it’s very exciting.”

Maybe there was some other interview where he talked about all of them at once, but those are the instances I remember vividly!