Mickey Spillane

There are people who have fun whatever they're doing and people who have no fun even if what they're doing is fun, just as there are people who have all the luck.

What's luck? Luck is being aware that the price of basic foods--chicken, milk, butter, bacon, fruit--increased by as much as 22% last year even though the federal govt. reported zero inflation.

Interviewed by CBS Evening News, the mother of two growing boys said shopping for groceries took more and more of her paycheck, saying it with a weird smile, like there was something she wasn't telling us. Maybe it was the way the light shined in her face, maybe she was just nervous, not accustomed to being asked questions and having to answer them.

Last night I heard screaming next door and went to investigate. It was just those crazy kids again! They drink too much on Saturday nights and say things they don't really mean to each other and before you know it, KABOOM. Something bad always happens when you can't hold your booze, that's a law, a fact of life.

Anyway, by the time I broke down the door, Bruno was slumped over the kitchen table, crying. Bruno's wife was passed out, curled around the bottom of the stove like she was searching for something big and warm to hang on to. Her name is Hannah. They're good kids, they'll wake up one of these days and see how lousy their love is.

I felt a great need to get the night off me so I took the top down and drove the roadster to the coast. By the time I crossed county line I'd solved the problem plaguing my latest book: the story wound now end on an airplane in Rome with me accompanying my dead body on the flight back to Los Angeles.