“Why did one have to put up a hue and cry about anything so trifling as the skin on one’s face, which, after all, was only a small part of the human capsule?
...
While such a situation would be understandable in a pimply adolescent who lives in visions, it was ridiculous for me, the section head of a respectable laboratory, moored securely to this world by an anchor-like weight, to be afflicted by psychological hives.”