Author

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

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.

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.

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.

If the public likes you, you're good.

Critics themselves, they used to tear me up.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

If I need something, I'll invent it.

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

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