Wit & Attitude Quote by Robert B. Parker

Self-deprecation is Parker’s favorite crowbar: it pries open the myth of the master craftsman and shows the messy room behind it. “You give me too much credit for foresight and planning” sounds like polite correction, the kind offered in interviews when admirers retrofit genius onto a career. Then he detonates the social nicety with “I haven’t got a clue what the hell I’m doing,” a line that’s both disarming and strategically profane. It rejects the auteur narrative with a shrug that still feels controlled. Parker is telling you he’s not a chess grandmaster; he’s a working writer making moves in real time.

The intent isn’t to claim incompetence. It’s to puncture a readerly hunger for grand design. Mystery and detective fiction, Parker’s home turf, invites fans to believe everything is planned: every clue planted, every twist inevitable. His subtext is that coherence often emerges after the fact, through revision, instinct, and sheer mileage. The “credit” belongs less to a blueprint than to the craft of making improvisation look inevitable.

Context matters: Parker wrote lean, confident books with a famously brisk style. That economy can read as effortless mastery, so the quote acts as counter-programming. It also functions as a kind of ethical stance: refusing the pose of omniscience. By admitting uncertainty, he aligns himself with his hard-boiled protagonists, who navigate chaos with attitude and competence, not perfect information. The line flatters the audience by leveling with them: the work may look like destiny, but it was built, one risky sentence at a time.