Humor & Life Quote by Tracey Ullman

Ullman’s line lands because it pushes back against the showbiz default setting: motion as proof of value. In comedy especially, there’s constant pressure to stay visible, stay booked, stay producing bits, characters, impressions - an economy where “doing” often substitutes for meaning. By insisting work is “important,” she signals discipline, not mere ambition. Then she tightens the screw: “for principle” versus “for the sake of doing them.” That contrast is a quiet indictment of performative productivity, the kind that looks industrious while sidestepping risk.

The subtext is credibility. Ullman built a career on transformation - accents, faces, entire social classes in miniature. That kind of craft can easily be misread as shapeshifting for applause. “Principle” reframes it as intention: choosing targets, deciding what’s worth satirizing, and refusing gigs that dilute the point. It’s also a boundary-setting sentence, the kind a woman in entertainment learns to deploy when the industry tries to package her as endlessly flexible, endlessly available.

There’s a moral elegance to the phrasing, but also a comedian’s pragmatism. Principle is not lofty abstraction here; it’s a filter. It’s how you keep your work from turning into content churn, how you avoid becoming your own brand’s employee. The line plays as both self-portrait and warning: if you’re working just to keep working, you’re not building a career - you’re feeding a machine that doesn’t care what you believe.