The Background for Good Conversation : Page 93

Avocations are excellent suppliers of conversational material. A plumber who is a gardener on the side is more interesting than one who knows only pipes and wrenches. Every avocation enlarges one's vocabulary, widens one's circle of friends, and enriches one's personality. The founder of the Catholic University physics department, the late Dr. Daniel W. Shea, had made birds his avocation. I remember how surprised and thrilled I was during a trip through New England to come upon him in his summer home in Maine, observing and writing about birds. It made him much more interesting for me than any restricted physicist, no matter how atomic, could have been! A salesman who sings in a quartette, and a bookkeeper who plays the choir organ are, all other things being equal, more interesting to talk with than those who don't have such avocations.