" This I have known since first I trod the path—a time comes when there is only despair, when you seek to tear the veil from the shrine, and you cry out to her and know that she will not answer because she is not there, because she was never there, there is no Goddess but only yourself, and you are alone in the mockery of echoes from an empty shrine. . . . There is no one there, there was never anyone there, and all the Sight is but dreams and delusions. . "

― Marion Zimmer Bradley , The Mists of Avalon (Avalon, #1)