How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The most dangerous sicknesses are those that make us believe we are well. (1.1)
Lena is describing the deliria here, but she could be describing any sort of mental illness that sometimes gives people feelings of extreme joy and extreme despair. Is that what love is: a mental illness?
Quote #2
People back then named other diseases—stress, heart disease, anxiety, depression, hypertension, insomnia, bipolar disorder—never realizing that these were, in fact, only symptoms that in the majority of cases could be traced back to the effects of amor deliria nervosa. (1.7)
Boy, they've managed to simplify a lot of complicated diseases in Lena's world. Does their oversimplification have any validity to it, or is this just a way to scare people into being afraid of love?
Quote #3
I must be crazy, zooming around in the half dark just to meet up with some guy on the beach. (6.84)
Meeting up with a guy you've met once, in an isolated location, might not be "crazy," but it's definitely not a very safe idea. We don't recommend it.
Quote #4
I tell myself I must have gone temporarily insane: brain scramble, from running in the heat. (7.18)
Because Lena has been taught that love is crazy, she starts to equate the nervous fluttering in her stomach that she feels when she thinks about Alex with bonafide mental illness.
Quote #5
We must have looked completely crazy. [...] "You looked happy." (9.140, 9.142)
This is an interesting comparison. Lena thinks she looks crazy when, to an outside observer, she looks happy. Perhaps the time she spent with her so-called crazy mother, who often seemed happy, made her equate happiness with madness.
Quote #6
It's like there's a filter set up in my brain, except instead of making things better, it twists everything around so what comes out of my mouth is totally wrong, totally different from what I was thinking. (10.18)
Yeah, the love/lust combo Lena feels toward Alex is totally making her crazy. It's a normal kind of crazy, but Lena doesn't take any kind of crazy lightly. Chill out, girl. It's just a crush. Right?
Quote #7
It took four scientists and several needles full of tranquilizer before [Rachel] would submit. (11.2)
Yikes. These kinds of procedures make us think of the mental health institutions of the past... and people in straightjackets.
Quote #8
I check constantly for symptoms of the disease. (11.12)
Lena's paranoia about love seems to make her crazier than the disease itself.
Quote #9
"She left all that. She gave it up—for, for that /thing./ Love. /Amor deliria nervosa/—whatever you want to call it. She gave /me/ up." (20.64)
Lena's mother fits the profile of a person with mental illness. We're not sure which mental illness—bipolar, most likely—but there's more to this "love as a disease" thing than Lena realizes. Clearly, her mom didn't want to give Lena up—she actually loved Lena, and wasn't shy about saying so.
Quote #10
The Crypts also serves as Portland's mental institution and [...] despite the cure we have our share of crazies just like anywhere else. (21.23)
Despite having a mother who is clearly mentally ill, Lena isn't too sensitive to the struggles of people with psychological disorders. Just like she tries to shrug off her mom because she abandons her, she uses the word "crazies" two times in this paragraph to dismiss those lovelorn souls who rot away in the Crypts.