"I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success."
— Steve Martin
I Did Standup Comedy For Eighteen
I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.
About this quote
From Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life (2007), Martin's memoir of his standup years. The breakdown — ten years learning, four refining, four in wild success — describes his standup career from roughly 1963 to 1981, when he retired from standup at the height of his fame to focus on film. Martin's point is that what looked like overnight success was the product of nearly two decades of invisible work, and that the eighteen years were not wasted time but the essential precondition for what followed.
Source
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life