Note that this function computes the quartiles using the
  quantile function rather than following
  Tukey's recommendations,
  i.e., IQR(x) = quantile(x, 3/4) - quantile(x, 1/4).  For normally $N(m,1)$ distributed $X$, the expected value of
  IQR(X) is 2*qnorm(3/4) = 1.3490, i.e., for a normal-consistent
  estimate of the standard deviation, use IQR(x) / 1.349.