Quote by Ingeborg Bachmann: “Only in our dreams are we truly free. The rest of the time we need wages.”

This quote starkly contrasts the boundless freedom of imagination with the practical constraints of everyday existence. Bachmann highlights how economic necessity dictates much of our waking lives, often limiting our true aspirations and sense of liberation to the realm of dreams.

From *Malina*. Bachmann, an intellectual and artist living in a post-war capitalist society, was deeply aware of the pressures of economic survival and how they could compromise artistic freedom and individual autonomy, a common theme in her work.

Austrian poet and prose writer who is considered one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar period. Her poetry collection Borrowed Time brought her immediate recognition, and her novel Malina explored trauma, identity, and language with haunting precision. She died in Rome in 1973 under circumstances that remain disputed.