When death stood round the corner, taking lives like a gardener digging up potatoes, it was foolishness to care what dirty things this person or that did with his body.
 W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil (1925). copy citation

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Author W. Somerset Maugham
Source The Painted Veil
Topic foolishness death
Date 1925
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64682/64682-h/64682-h.htm

Context

“She had an instinct to throw herself on the mercy of his humour. After all they had gone through, when they were living amid these scenes of horror and desolation, it seemed inept to attach importance to the ridiculous act of fornication. When death stood round the corner, taking lives like a gardener digging up potatoes, it was foolishness to care what dirty things this person or that did with his body. If she could only make him realise how little Charlie meant to her, so that now already she had difficulty in calling up his features to her imagination, and how entirely the love of him had passed out of her heart!” source