Never beg for mercy. Accept that you have failed. Begging is for dogs and humans.
They’d blame a castoff just for breathing. You could be good as gold and they’d still blame you.
Blood is not destiny.
Life is exponential. Two becomes four, becomes ten thousand, becomes a plague.
Plenty of people say my guesses about a future drought in the western U.S. (where I live and grew up) are wrong, so I don't see why I won't be wrong in some people's eyes when I go set a story on foreign shores.
Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it's a lot smokier and less defined.