Until you know that life is interesting - and find it so - you haven't found your soul.

Who knows whether in retirement I shall be tempted to the last infirmity of mundane minds, which is to write a book.

In cities no one is quiet but many are lonely; in the country, people are quiet but few are lonely.

When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.

In one sense what may pass between the pope and myself may be trivialities. In another sense the fact of talking trivialities is itself a portent of great significance. But the pleasantries which we exchange may, as one church leader said, be pleasantries about profundities.

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that Christianity is one long shout of joy!

Once you start, there is no end to who is to go in and who is to be left out.