MICKEY SPILLANE

Oh yeah, I was one of the first guys writing comic books, I wrote Captain America, with guys like Stan Lee, who became famous later on with Marvel Comics.

I'm a country boy. I hate New York. But that's where things happen, so I use it as a base for stories, I know enough about it. But I have to keep going back there.

I read all the time... I read a lot of history books.

I played in a movie called Ring of Fear with Clyde Beatty and Pat O'Brien.

Stephen King. Now I'm not crazy about him, but he's a great a writer.

If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes.

Where I am they can smell out a hurricane. My house survived Hurricane Hazel, but it didn't get past Hugo.

Now I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am.

Hemingway hated me. I sold 200 million books, and he didn't. Of course most of mine sold for 25 cents, but still... you look at all this stuff with a grain of salt.

I'm 82 years old, wherever I go everybody knows me, but here's why... I'm a merchandiser, I'm not just a writer, I stay in every avenue you can think of.

Victor Saville was bad news because he wanted money just to do one big picture.

I know an awful lot of Hollywood people, who are so self-important, I can't understand it.

I'm a commercial writer, not an author. Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book.

If I need something, I'll invent it.

I wrote the original Mike Hammer as a comic, Mike Danger.

Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.

I try to stay in good physical shape, I don't smoke, I don't drink.

Critics themselves, they used to tear me up.

I started off at the high level, in the slick magazines, but they didn't use my name, they used house names. Anyway, then I went downhill to the pulps, then downhill further to the comics.

Imagine this guy hits Mike Hammer over the head with a wooden coathanger and knocks him out. You hit Mike Hammer over the head with a wooden coathanger, he'll beat the crap out of you.

Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.

If the public likes you, you're good.

My father was Catholic, my mother was Protestant, and because of that I got Christened in both churches, so I've got all these names... but my Dad always called me Mick.

See, heroes never die. John Wayne isn't dead, Elvis isn't dead. Otherwise you don't have a hero. You can't kill a hero. That's why I never let him get older.

Mike Hammer drinks beer because I can't spell Cognac.