Robert E.L. Masters > Quotes

“It is all too easy to observe a few "symptoms" and from these diagnose a "psychosis" - as, for instance, one might regard love as a "psychosis" if considered just on the basis of the "symptoms". Lovers, after all, display not infrequently such "symptomatic behavior" as monomania, folie à deux, "paranoidal" suspicion, extreme fluctuations of mood, hypermnesia (as regards the beloved's words), illogicality, delusions, idée fixe, ideas of reference, the belief they can read one another's mind, impaired or distorted perception (especially as regards perception of the beloved), physical states ranging from apparent neurasthenic fatigability and lack of zest to apparent hyperhedonia and hyperkinesis, and so on. But if love is madness, then we all carry within us a powerful desire to be mad - at least once.”
― Robert E.L. Masters, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience