Critics themselves, they used to tear me up.

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 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.

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.

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

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 dont like any of them, because they don't read the books. In Kiss Me Deadly my story is better than his story. Anthony Quinn played in The Lond Wait and he didn't read the book either.

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.

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

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.

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

Critics themselves, they used to tear me up.

If the public likes you, you're good.

If I need something, I'll invent it.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Since hydrogen is a constituent of most of our electrolytic solvents, the definition of an acid or base as a substance which gives up or takes up hydrogen ion would be more general than the one we used before, but it would not be universal.

Pricey oil makes clear that wealth really is energy in various forms.

I admire the work of brilliant actresses such as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, who have had such varied careers. They have never stopped working, and they are as great today as they ever were.

Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother.

'Broad City' is how I wish we could all be, whereas 'Girls' is maybe a more accurate representation of how things are.

It has to be good to live in Singapore because otherwise, nobody will stand for it.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.

Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter.

Lifes a gamble. Courage is to roll the dice and go for the gusto when all odds and bets are against you

Joe Gibbs helped define what the Washington Redskins stand for - integrity, hard work, determination, winning and championships.

Lifes too precious so have fun treasure the memories say what you want do what you want have no regrets and remember everything happens for a reason.

It might interest you to know that the 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary identifies the optimist in complimentary terms, but says nothing about the pessimist. The word 'pessimist' was not in our vocabulary at that time. It's a modern 'invention' which I believe we should 'dis-invent.'

Tech never comes back the same.

Harvard is the home of American ideas.

I truly love coming to work every day.

We had so many dreams as children. Where do they go when we grow Are they swallowed up by the mundane things of everyday life Or do we lose them leave them behind us in the dust for new children to find and take up

Our strength is not just in the size of our defense budget, but in the size of our hearts, in the size of our gratitude for their sacrifice. And that's not just measured in words or gestures.

I don't need bodyguards. I'm from the South Bronx.

I always wanted to be normal. I tried really hard, but it's like I try so hard and then people still say I'm offbeat. I've learnt to accept that and take advantage of it as an actor.

The bottom line is that the death tax is a tax on the economy because it slows economic growth.

I probably felt most out of place as a young kid growing up in Sri Lanka. My mental world was somewhere else, partly because of reading and daydreaming.

It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds good, but what's really there, what you really have to express, in words that somehow convey that meaning in an approximate way.

A child can ask a thousand questions that the wisest man cannot answer.