"I prefer men to cauliflowers."
-Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, p. 1

When I first read this line, I laughed out loud, having just returned from a term in Barcelona living with a woman who considered a plate of unsalted, steamed cauliflower an acceptable dinner.

What always amazes me about Woolf is the incredible clarity in her sentences, even within her sometimes difficult style. We get pages-long paragraphs about seashores and dreams, and then little gems like this pop up. After all, who wouldn't prefer men to cauliflowers? From the mouth of Peter Walsh, humans are far more compelling than strangely-shaped vegetables. From Woolf's own perspective, studying men and women through her writing is far more intense and terrifying than gardening, far spicier than a plate of cauliflower. After all, writing gives us an entry into the psyche, the far reaches of the mind -- a place more daunting than the most overgrown of gardens.