The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love... A mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.
It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everybody wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many.
Carson McCullers
'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe.'
