Daily Inspiration Quote by Martin Short

Martin Short is describing a comedian's small act of sabotage: refusing to let an audience settle into the comfort of recognition. "Lull" is the tell. It frames predictability as a kind of sleep, a passive state where viewers stop watching and start consuming. His phrasing, "letting them think that something is something", sounds almost childlike, but it's a precision tool: he's mocking the basic contract of genre and character, the idea that a persona, a sketch premise, even a facial expression should resolve into the obvious thing you paid for.

The intent isn't confusion for its own sake; it's control. Short's comedy has always depended on steering people toward a familiar door, then swapping the room behind it. His characters - the painfully earnest Ed Grimley, the grotesquely needy Jiminy Glick - begin as recognizable types and then tilt into a stranger, more revealing extremity. The laugh comes from the audience realizing they've been complicit in their own assumptions.

There's also a backstage ethic embedded here: respect the audience enough to surprise them. Defying expectations is "fun", but it's also a refusal of complacency, especially in an entertainment culture that rewards repetition. Short came up in eras of sketch and late-night where the safest move is to hit the beat everyone anticipates. He's arguing for the opposite: keep the viewer slightly off-balance, because that's when they're most alive - and when comedy can smuggle in something sharper than mere charm.