If I need something, I'll invent it.

If I need something, I'll invent it.

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.

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.

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

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

The most important part of a story is the ending. No one reads a book to get to the middle.