last words

Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900) "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do!" [The authenticity of this quote is complicated by his deathbed conversion back to Catholicism and the fact that a priest was with him up to the very end. Another deathbed quotation is also attributed to him: he asked for Champagne to sip as he died, and as he sipped, he is reported to have said: "Alas, I am dying beyond my means."

wilde's tombstone, a Paris