I was born in very sorry circumstances. Both of my parents were very sorry.

This is a characteristically deadpan Norman Wisdom gag built on a pun: “sorry circumstances” first suggests poverty or hardship, then flips to mean his parents were literally “sorry” (regretful, apologetic, or pitiable). The humor comes from compressing a bleak origin story into a neat linguistic twist, turning potential pathos into a one-liner. It also fits Wisdom’s broader comic persona—an underdog figure who converts misfortune into resilience through wit—by implying that even the most basic facts of life can be reframed as a joke. The line’s economy and reversal make it memorable as a stand-alone quip, even when detached from its original performance setting.