The author quotes Freud, Reik, Saul, Rosen, and Fairbairn in an attempt to define love, loving, and being loved. He tries to explain what happens if the roles of the ego and the love object are reversed and suggests that 'the object might be active in relation to the ego'. Sullivan thinks that the superego is a model object in that the process of its development may set a pattern for the acquisition of later, less consequential objects. So many quotes from so many authors does not clarify loving and being loved. Reik thinks it is a question of whether all wisdom is worth the illusion of happiness that love gives.