Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly. Their average life span is a mere five to fourteen days.

The line uses a comic, faux-empirical comparison to make a familiar memento mori feel fresh: if human life seems long enough to postpone joy or change, the butterfly’s brief adulthood (invoked as “evidence”) punctures that complacency. The humor comes from treating an insect as a witness you could “ask,” and from the sudden pivot into precise-sounding statistics. Beneath the joke is a pragmatic exhortation associated with DeGeneres’s stand-up persona—don’t overcomplicate things, don’t wait for perfect timing, and keep perspective. The butterfly image also carries an implicit note about transformation: even a short life can be vivid, mobile, and complete.