My friend Edward Shils, one of the great sociologists of the past century, read Dickens, Balzac, Conrad, and Cather over and over; and there can be little doubt that his having done so made him a better social scientist. I shall never forget Edvard telling me one evening how much he admired Milton Friedman, George Stigler, and other free-market economists who were his colleagues at the University of Chicago.
"They are highly intelligent," he said, " and subtle and penetrating and have intellectual courage. Yet with all that, Joseph, I fear that they are insufficiently impressed with the mysteries of life."

My 1950s
(1993)
I want to live in a place again where I can
walk down any street without being
afraid. I want to be able to take my
daughter to a park at any time of day or
night in the summertime and remember
what I used to be able to do when I was a
little kid.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Times Magazine.