It was the moment of shadow, of half-real things. - C. J. Cherryh

I couldn’t yet see the limits of my life, but he could see the limits of his. His life was thin, and he had a hunger for recognition.

So it fed him his courage back. He drew a deeper breath, reassessed himself and the pathetic ridiculousness, the childishness of the things stored in comp, the nature of the sealed compartments and the relics he lived among. So if she thought that, so if she felt that, then she would not laugh — and the others, these strangers they went to meet — she could handle. As long as she was with him; as long as she found nothing humorous in a man trying to be what he was not — who listened to voices instead of family, who had never had the strength to clear out all the debris of the past; who kept a secret voice that talked to a child who should have long ago grown up; excruciating things. A lifetime of illusions.

Tabini was at least canny enough in the differences between atevi and human to know that, gut level, he might think he understood - but chances were very good that he wouldn't, couldn't, and never would, unaided by the paidhi, come up with the right forecast of human behavior because he didn't come with the right hardwiring. Average people didn't analyze what they thought: they thought they thought, and half of it was gut reaction.