Just joining us for Fifty Days of Fifty Shades? You can learn more about the event and giveaway here!

The second section of Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey that we’ll be sharing quotes with you from is all about the series as romance. We’ll update this post on October 15 with quotes from the six essays from the romance section. You can also catch the quotes daily on our Tumblr and Fifty Writers Facebook page.

Learn more about the second giveaway:

Until midnight CST on October 15, you can enter right here to win one of six copies of Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey, the second batch of the fifty copies we’re giving away between now and November 20!

To enter, tell us in the comments below where you would want Christian Grey to take you on a date (saying you would rather stay home and read is also an option!). U.S. and Canadian entries only, please.

Good luck!

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Romance Quotes

“Sexy eyes are the biggest turn-on there is for me. They provide an immediate sexual connection. Whether what’s there is romantic or animalistic, it’s always hot. Conversely, if there’s nothing going on with the eyes, I give up all sexual interest. Attraction starts with a look and sometimes that is all it takes, because just one look into someone else’s eyes can put us on the same wavelength. Once that connection is made, I find it hard to break. As E. L. James writes, ‘He [Christian] has beautiful eyes—captivating, intelligent, deep, and dark, dark with dominant secrets.’ Oh my!” —Marci Hirsch, “It’s All in the Eyes”

“Think of Fifty Shades as your favorite epic romance with a touch of BDSM. With Christian Grey, E. L. James gives us the modern manifestation of the Byronic hero archetype—only this time the reader gets to know him more intimately than ever before. His allure is rooted in the qualities we have always been drawn to in our darkest romantic heroes, but now we get to go bed with him (a lot), and women (myself included) just can’t get enough.” —Jennifer Sanzo, “The Byronic Hero Archetype and Christian Grey”

“Here are a few thoughts on why Fifty Shades really hits the G-spot…Girl with spirit and pluck meets man of property is ever a panty peeling premise in the Victorian novel. Literature is riddled with submission/dominance themes. The very tales of literary heroines that our literary heroine, virginal Anastasia Steele, has been steeped in. An expert on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women’s novels, Susan Greenfield calls this hot title recycled literature. Indeed, Fifty Shades revels in the classic romanticism of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, and the plot specifically references Thomas Hardy.” —Katharine Sands, “Grey Is the New Black”

“Regardless of our sexual appetites, our kink, our desires in and out of the bedroom, when we’re newly in love, we flog ourselves with feelings, excoriate ourselves with doubts. We may appear flawless and totally together on the outside but on the inside…we are bleeding. What E.L James accomplishes in Fifty Shades of Grey is to invite us inside a world where those inner hurts can be manifested in a very real, very tangible, very sexy way: BDSM.” —Hope Tarr, PhD, “Because Love Hurts”

“Ideally, we would live in a culture where abuse and romance weren’t so easy to confuse, where women could look at a man like Chris Brown or Christian Grey and see them for the predators they are. We would be able to draw a line between what women want in fiction and what they want in reality, and we would be able to draw a similar line between what we feel comfortable fantasizing about and our social consciences. To get there, we have to face some uncomfortable truths about ourselves and our culture.” —Jennifer Armintrout, “Every Breath You Take”

“It had been years since I felt so pursued. And despite all of his negatives, his allure was electric. He wanted to possess me, to own me, to make me his. For weeks he’d call at 1:00 a.m. and in his lowest, deepest voice he’d speak of the one thing every woman loves to hear: his desire for me.” —Judith Regan, “Fifty Shades of Play”