Time & Perspective Quote by Tracey Ullman

There is a whole career of comedy packed into Ullman s mild complaint: in Los Angeles, social life is a performance contract. The line lands because it treats the so called scene like a workplace with invisible HR rules. You are not just showing up; you are clocking in. "Invited out" sounds friendly, but the next sentence flips it into obligation, a soft form of coercion where access comes with a dress code for personality.

The key phrase is "on all the time". Coming from a comedian, it reads as both insider testimony and a quiet refusal. Comics are paid to be on, to scan a room, to find the angle, to keep energy high even when they are depleted. Ullman points out the bleed between stagecraft and socializing in a town that rewards charisma as currency. L.A. is often caricatured as superficial; she sharpens that into something more specific: constant self production. You are expected to brand yourself, to be delightful, to network without admitting you are networking.

"It s just wearying" is the punchline in plain clothes. No grand moralizing, just fatigue, the kind that comes from being treated as content. The subtext is boundaries: opting out is not shyness, it is self defense. Ullman, famous for her chameleonic characters, is telling you the real flex in Hollywood might be the ability to stop performing when the cameras are not even rolling.