“So we aren’t any closer to unification than we were in Einstein’s time?” the historian asked.Feynman grew angry. “It’s a crazy question! … We’re certainly closer. We know more. And if there’s a finite amount to be known, we obviously must be closer to having the knowledge, okay? I don’t know how to make this into a sensible question…. It’s all so stupid. All these interviews are always so damned useless.”
He rose from his desk and walked out the door and down the corridor, drumming his knuckles along the wall. The writer heard him shout, just before he disappeared: “It’s goddamned useless to talk about these things! It’s a complete waste of time! The history of these things is nonsense! You’re trying to make something difficult and complicated out of something that’s simple and beautiful.”
Across the hall Murray Gell-Mann looked out of his office. “I see you’ve met Dick,” he said.
— James Gleick, from Genius: the Life and Science of Richard Feynman