The human side of doing theoretical physics is explored through stories about the interactions between physicists and about the effects world events can have on scientists' behavior, and even on their interests and style. These stories cluster nicely around certain bigger themes to create an overarching whole. This happens both on account of some interesting narrative structures intrinsic to the science of physics itself and on account of the way physics integrates into the general culture. The stories concern Einstein, Schrödinger, Pauli, Heisenberg, Stueckelberg, Jordan and Fock and also involve some mathematicians like Emmy Noether, Teichmüller and Bers and even the psychologist C.G. Jung.