We want flesh, flesh for fantasy.
Your success depends on what you do yourself, with your own means
The noblest art is that of making others happy
Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.
The best kind of charity is to help those who are willing to help themselves.
There is no greater picture than that of 10,000 smiling children. No brighter music than their clear-ringing laughter. That I, with my small amusements, have created such precious art is my life's proudest achievement.
Every man's occupation should be beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else is vanity and folly.
Get unstuck from whatever it is you perceive is holding you back from realizing your dreams.
An important factor to note is that it's rare for anyone to sell a first novel written before they turned 30-35; long-format fiction tends to require a bunch of experience of human life that takes time to acquire. So your average mid-career novelist is in their forties to fifties!
Discipline is what makes a writer. If writing was like lifting weights, then I'd look like Mr. Universe. Write every day. Give the Muse a chance to get to know you.
I prefer to subscribe to that whole, “everything happens for a reason” theory, mostly because the alternative is too disturbing to think about.