Mickey Spillane Short Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

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I don't research anything. If I need something, I'll invent it.

Mickey Spillane
I always wanted to have Mike Mazurki play Hammer... too bad he couldn't act.

Mickey Spillane
I don't care what the editor likes or dislikes, I care what the people like.

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

Mickey Spillane
I was the first one probably in writing to use a nickname, Mickey, and it stuck.

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

Mickey Spillane
If the public likes you, you're good. Shakespeare was a common, down-to-earth writer in his day.

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

Mickey Spillane
I'm actually a softie. Tough guys get killed too early... I've got a full head of hair and don't wear eyeglasses.

Mickey Spillane
I'm the most translated writer in the world, behind Lenin, Tolstoy, Gorki and Jules Verne. And they're all dead...

Mickey Spillane
When I started the paperback market, there were only a few good writers, now the market's loaded... you don't know which one to take.

Mickey Spillane
I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am. Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.

Mickey Spillane
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.

Mickey Spillane
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.

Mickey Spillane
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.

Mickey Spillane
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.

Mickey Spillane
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
We brought a man back who should have died long ago. The present can't stand a man like that anymore. Now they want indecision and compromise and reluctance and fear.

Mickey Spillane
I've gotta keep writing. But where's the next step, where do you go? But at my age, you start to get tired. You're not full of piss and vinegar. The vinegar's all gone.

Mickey Spillane
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.

Mickey Spillane