Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.

Not in his writings; it rests on later memories of his talk. The earliest record Quote Investigator (2021) found is indirect: a letter from W. B. Yeats to Lady Gregory of December 1908, recalled in her journal for 1928 (published 1947), in which a friend of Wilde’s reports that he said the wallpaper was killing him: ‘One of us had to go.’ In 1929 the Paris weekly L’Européen printed the memories of Claire de Pratz, a journalist who knew Wilde in Paris, who said she had heard from him of ‘a duel to the death’ between him and his wallpaper. A deathbed setting first appears in the Liverpool Echo in 1950 (‘This wallpaper is killing me; one of us must go’). Philippe Jullian and H. Montgomery Hyde give it as said ‘once’, not at the end. The ‘Either … or I do’ form is late: the earliest QI found is a UPI report of 1976 (‘Either this wallpaper goes or I will’), then the Washington Post in 1981. Richard Ellmann’s biography (1988) gives ‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go’, set on a day of drinking weeks before his death. In his last days Wilde was mostly delirious or unconscious; he was received into the Catholic Church the day before he died.

Repeated as Wilde’s last words, spoken on his deathbed in the Hôtel d’Alsace in Paris, where he died on 30 November 1900. There is reasonable evidence that he made a joke of this kind about the hotel’s wallpaper in his last months, but not in these words, and not as his last words.

A dying man’s joke at his own expense: the ugly wallpaper and he cannot both survive, and he knows which of them will go.

Not his last words, and the ‘Either … or I do’ wording is from the 1970s. If you use it, give it as a remark he is reported to have made about his wallpaper in his last months.

• A misquotationMy wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go. Richard Ellmann’s wording in Oscar Wilde (1988), placed weeks before his death, not on the deathbed. Where it was seen
• A misquotationThis wallpaper is killing me; one of us must go. The deathbed version as printed in the Liverpool Echo, 30 November 1950. Where it was seen

Death

• I have nothing to declare except my genius. (not found)
• The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. (paraphrase) Mark Twain
• I had the radio on. Marilyn Monroe
• I sleep in Chanel Number Five. Marilyn Monroe
• A curved line is the loveliest distance between two points. Mae West

• quoteinvestigator.com/2021/10/22/wallpaper
• Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (Knopf, 1988), as quoted by Quote Investigator

“Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.” Attributed to Oscar Wilde. No. Not in these words, and not as his last words. Friends reported a joke of his about a wallpaper from 1908 on; this wording comes from much later retellings. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/either-that-wallpaper-goes-or-i-do/ (checked 21 October 2026).

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