Humor & Life Quote by Norman Wisdom

The line lands like a wink dressed up as humility: Wisdom insists he is "very lucky", then immediately rigs the definition of luck so it rewards sweat. That pivot is the whole gag and the whole worldview. As a comedian who built a career playing the put-upon little man, Wisdom understood that audiences bristle at boastfulness but crave a moral in the mess. So he offers a self-effacing opener, then slips in a quiet claim of agency. You can hear the timing in it: the first "But no" deflates praise, the second "But I've worked hard" re-inflates it, and the closing twist turns a cosmic accident into a dependable outcome.

The subtext is defensive and strategic. Fame, especially for a working-class performer in postwar Britain, can read as suspiciously unearned: a few breaks, the right producer, the right era. Wisdom acknowledges that suspicion ("lucky") to disarm it, then reframes his success as merit without sounding sanctimonious. The phrase "seem to get" is doing extra work, too: he knows luck is partly narrative, a story people tell after the fact to make randomness feel fair. Work doesn't abolish chance; it makes you look inevitable when chance arrives.

Contextually, it's a creed suited to variety halls, film sets, and the British tradition of underdog comedy: effort as dignity, grumbling optimism as brand. Wisdom sells the comforting idea that the world is arbitrary, but not totally: you can't control the break, only your readiness for it.