How a real tough guy talks.

"I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends."

"Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar."

(On Mike Hammer) "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. "

"Hemingway hated me. I outsell him and he was steamed. One day he wrote a story for Bluebook berating me. So I'm going on a big TV show in Chicago and I don't get it, that's sour grapes... I mean if you can't say something nice about someone why say anything at all? "

"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. "

-Mickey Spillane
1918-2006