"We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality"
About this Quote
Garland’s line lands like a soft punch because it’s both romantic and unforgiving: dreaming isn’t framed as innocent escapism, but as a kind of spending spree with the one currency you never earn back. “Cast away” makes time feel physical and squanderable, while “priceless” quietly accuses the dreamer of treating something sacred as disposable. The sentence moves through a full life cycle - born, fed, put to death - turning fantasies into living things we raise in private, only to watch them get executed by the world’s blunt procedures.
The subtext is harder if you read it through Garland’s public arc. She became a symbol of yearning (The Wizard of Oz practically industrialized the idea that desire can be sung into being), then spent much of her real life colliding with the machinery of studios, addiction, scrutiny, and expectations. In that context, “reality” isn’t a neutral backdrop; it’s the institutional, bodily, and economic force that closes in when the lights go up. The line sounds like someone who knows the seduction of imagining a better life, and also knows how quickly the bill arrives.
What makes it work is its refusal to flatter the audience. Dreams are “fed upon illusion” - not nourished by hope, but by something knowingly false. Yet it doesn’t fully sneer at dreaming, either. There’s grief in “put to death,” as if reality is less a teacher than an assassin. Garland isn’t arguing against imagination; she’s warning that it can become a beautiful way to disappear from your own life.
The subtext is harder if you read it through Garland’s public arc. She became a symbol of yearning (The Wizard of Oz practically industrialized the idea that desire can be sung into being), then spent much of her real life colliding with the machinery of studios, addiction, scrutiny, and expectations. In that context, “reality” isn’t a neutral backdrop; it’s the institutional, bodily, and economic force that closes in when the lights go up. The line sounds like someone who knows the seduction of imagining a better life, and also knows how quickly the bill arrives.
What makes it work is its refusal to flatter the audience. Dreams are “fed upon illusion” - not nourished by hope, but by something knowingly false. Yet it doesn’t fully sneer at dreaming, either. There’s grief in “put to death,” as if reality is less a teacher than an assassin. Garland isn’t arguing against imagination; she’s warning that it can become a beautiful way to disappear from your own life.
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