For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction. - C. J. Cherryh

...it struck at the root of intentions, not at the flower.

And both root and the flower were important to him, one having to do with what one meant to do... and the other, most fearsome, with the outcome of it.

What is, is, and that's what we know. What will be is a fine pursuit, but fraught with too damned many possibilities. Fortune-telling, I tell you, is not what it's surmised to be.

Be at ease,” Tabini said, which surely meant it was not bad news in the offing, so he felt free to draw an easier breath. “You cannot think, nand’ paidhi, that your actions are in any sense disapproved. You should by no means seem so ill at ease.”
Did it show that badly? He tried to settle. “One hopes that this is the case, aiji-ma,” he said, “but it was a long voyage, and the aishidi’tat has seen a great deal of disturbance in the interim.