Yeah, it's the unfortunate truth. I mentioned in an earlier entry that in my first writing class our instructor brought in a local writer to trash all of our starry-eyed hopes for literary fame. In grad school, an agent actually came in to give advice on our pitches and out of 160 people, she only wanted to talk to 3 people afterward.
People don't become professional writers because it seems like a fun activity, it's often because they can't imagine doing anything else, no matter how much they might want to.