With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of the studio. "Don’t, Basil, don’t!" he cried. "It would be murder!"
– Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2. Dorian runs to stop Basil from cutting up his portrait with a knife, pleading that it would be murder. When Basil reaches for the palette-knife to destroy the painted canvass of Dorian this is foreshadowing of when Dorian will murder Basil by stabbing him with a knife in the final chapter.