Sylvia Day

I had a very realistic expectation of the level of success that it was possible to attain writing romance novels.

Writers are not celebrities, so you don't expect to walk down the street and hear, 'Oh my God, there's Sylvia Day.' You prefer to be anonymous.

The world would be a very sad place if readers could only love one story.

As a writer, it's disheartening to write books that you pour your soul into and not have them distributed widely enough to find their audience.

I have things I watch in my downtime - I love 'Scandal.' I don't write political romance, so there's not a direct relation there. But it's something I do just to turn off the brain for a little bit, and just to relax and recharge.

I think we love the fantasy of being the one person who can really touch the person who has been untouchable for everybody else. There's something that makes us feel very special about that; that we could be the one out of everyone who's tried and everybody who's wanted to reach that person - you're the only one who could do it.

Especially in writing love stories, there's always the assumption that once you've said 'I do,' once you get to the point where you're married, well, the hard part is over.

I've been told by readers that they love how my heroes fall in love fast, first, and with conviction.

I was 12 and read my first romance novel; it was a sweeping desert saga, and I got to the end of it and was like, 'I want to go back and start all over again!' That emotional response to the book and getting to the end of a story you love is what inspires me to write the next book.

I believe that if you work hard at a relationship, devoting time and energy to it, being willing to grow and experiment, and never take it for granted, that you can continue to feel the initial attraction and excitement indefinitely.

When it comes to your hero, what the readers really fall in love with are his flaws. No one ever falls in love with a perfect hero.

The No. 1 thing is to write the book that you love and then hope that it finds an audience with the same taste as you. I think I've done that, and that's lucky.