I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and other instruments of self-destruction.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 23. Pip is at the home of the Pockets, where the woman of the house Mrs. Pocket is obsessed with social status and was reading a took about titles earlier. During dinner Pip is nervous that his working class manners might show through his clumsy use of the cutlery and glasses. So he makes a special effort when using these “instruments of self-destruction,” as he describes them in a clever metaphor.