  We investigate the impact of quantum fluctuations on a light rolling
quintessence field from three different sources, namely, from a coupling to the
standard model and dark matter, from its self-couplings and from its coupling
to gravity. We derive bounds for time-varying masses from the change of vacuum
energy, finding \Delta m_e/m_e << 10^{-11} for the electron and \Delta m_p/m_p
<< 10^{-15} for the proton since redshift z~2, whereas the neutrino masses
could change of order one. Mass-varying dark matter is also constrained. Next,
the self-interactions are investigated. For inverse power law potentials, the
effective potential does not become infinitely large at small field values, but
saturates at a finite maximal value. We discuss implications for cosmology.
Finally, we show that one-loop corrections induce non-minimal gravitational
couplings involving arbitrarily high powers of the curvature scalar R,
indicating that quintessence entails modified gravity effects.
