Sex, Surrealism, Dali and Me: A biography of Salvador Dali

And I remember you telling us how you first met the plastics millionaire, your most famous collector, a man with his very own Dalí museum in St Petersburg, Florida. It was at the St Regis Hotel in New York in the 1950s, the innocent years. In the pee-pee room, naturally. They stood side by side in the row of polished white urinals. 'What was he doi

One day, in the summer of 1970, I was standing naked in the studio, the light behind me, the sun glinting on the waves in Port Lligat. Dalí was pleased with the study on the easel and exasperated with the roughs that littered the floor. He called Arturo. 'Get rid of this rubbish. Burn it,' he instructed and, as we left the room, the faithful servan

There was Captain Peter Moore, a small man, Dalí's business manager, on the end of a lead being led by an ocelot

'Surrealism is not a movement. It is a latent state of mind perceivable through the powers of dream and nightmare. It is a human predisposition. People ask me: What is the difference between the irrational and the surreal and I tell them: the Divine Dalí.'

We journeyed on through the music and smoke, the chatter of conversation, Dalí leading the way with a cane he held like a bishop's sceptre. It had once belonged to Sarah Bernhardt and when it was stolen he missed it like the limb the great tragedienne had amputated. 'After they cut off her leg she kept performing her act. Genius is subtle. We find

Not a peseta in cash remained in Dalí's bank accounts. But there were three hundred million dollars in works of art

Gala's predator eyes surveyed the scene like a hungry person looking at a menu. Like Don Salvador, she liked skinny, handsome young beaux with slim waists and broad chests and liked them more if they could play the piano. Gala seemed strangely normal among the exotics in a plain suit and her hair in the black bow Coco Chanel had given her. I never

Amanda Lear was absent. She was your greatest achievement, the boy who became the girl every girl wanted to be and every man desired. She was your very own Frankenstein, but all monsters forsake their master.

You said once: 'I have a dream, a vision, and every day it changes. That is the nature of genius.'