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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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