“They had left him for dead in the middle of a pool of blood in his own bedroom, his belly slit open like gaping barn doors, the hilt of the knife wedged against his sternum. But the only trouble was that he had stayed alive somehow, his life pumping out, managing to knock the telephone off the little table and dial me. Now he was looking up at me with seconds left and all he could do was force out the words, "Mike …there was no reason."”

— Mickey Spillane

Survival...Zero! (1970)

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Mickey Spillane 59

American writer 1918–2006

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Canto I, line 81
Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Context: For rhetoric, he could not ope
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And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words, ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by;
Else, when with greatest art he spoke,
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For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.

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Mickey Spillane 59

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