Salvador “Dalí is the Biggest ‘Prick’ of the 20th Century,” Says the Quotable Henry Miller

There’s no two ways about it. Henry Miller had a way with words. He could be blunt, lewd, cutting, all in one short sentence. You want a little case study? Ok, how about the notes Miller scrawled back in 1973, when he called Salvador Dalí “the biggest ‘prick” of the 20th century” (or, in another instance a “prick of the first water”). What was his beef with the Spanish surrealist? It all started in 1940, when Miller and his lover, the incomparable Anaïs Nin, spent some time cooped up in the same house with Dalí, who turned out to be an insufferable prima donna. Their time together ended in a wild shouting match, with Miller and Nin storming out of the home and holding a grudge for decades to come. The story is nicely recounted by Book Tryst, a site that has recently become a new favorite of ours.

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