Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.

The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone.

I live by the mercy of Jesus, to whom I owe everything and from whom I expect everything.

Today the universal common good poses problems of world-wide dimensions, which cannot be adequately tackled or solved except by the efforts of public authorities endowed with a wideness of powers, structure and means of the same proportions; that is... on a world-wide basis.

The Catholic Church has a dignity far surpassing that of every merely human society, for it was founded by Christ the Lord. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the language it uses should be noble, majestic, and non-vernacular.

When I eat alone I feel like a seminarian being punished. I tried it for one week and I was not comfortable. Then I searched through Sacred Scripture for something saying I had to eat alone. I found nothing, so I gave it up and it's much better now.

I am able to follow my own death step by step. Now I move softly towards the end.