I remember reading a magazine interview Dalí did once, many years ago, in which he claimed to remember being in his mother’s womb. “Oh, really,” the interviewer asked, “what was it like?”

To understand Dalí’s answer, you need to know that an œuf sur le plat (“egg on the plate”) is the French name for what we call a fried egg, sunny side up. Dalí’s description of the womb was, C’était comme d’être entre deux œufs sur le plat, sans le plat: “It was like being between two eggs on the plate, without the plate.” Truly a one-of-a-kind character.