"Taking away" means removing or carrying something off from a place, person, or total. It can mean subtracting in math or removing rights, options, or distractions. It also describes gaining a lesson or insight, as in what you are taking away.
What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else. Tom Clancy
Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation. H. L. Mencken
Many will be busied in taking away from a thing, which will grow in proportion as it is diminished. Leonardo da Vinci
There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream -- whatever that dream might be. Pearl S. Buck
I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen to own guns for sporting, hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon. Ronald Reagan
No motive is pure. No one is good or bad-but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away. Carrie Fisher