Adorning each volume of the Feynman Lectures on Physics was a picture of
Feynman in shirtsleeves, gleefully pounding a bongo drum. He came to
regret that. "It's odd," he said after hearing himself introduced yet
again as a bongo player, "but on the infrequent occasions when I have been
called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer
never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical
physics. I believe that is probably because we respect the arts more than
the sciences." And when yet another request came in for a copy of the
photograph - from a Swedish encyclopedia publisher who wished to "give a
human approach to a presentation of the difficult matter that theoretical
physics represents" - he exploded. "Dear Sir," he scrawled, 

     The fact that I beat a drum has nothing to do with the fact that I do
theoretical physics. Theoretical physics is a human endeavor, one of the
higher developments of human beings - and this perpetual desire to prove
that people who do it are human by showing that they do other things that
a few other humans do (like playing bongo drums) is insulting to me. 

     I'm human enough to tell you to go to hell. 

This is an extract from the book Genius, Richard Feynman and modern
physics by James Gleick.