It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.
Interpretation
This quote humorously reflects on the weight of leadership and the absurdity of one's own importance.
Pope John XXIII's quote captures a moment of unexpected self-realization, where he jests about the burden of responsibility that comes with being a leader. In the middle of contemplating serious issues, he humorously forgets his own position of authority, illustrating how the pressures of leadership can sometimes feel overwhelming and lead to moments of lightness.
In practice
Use this quote to lighten the mood during a leadership conference.
Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.
Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. We must always remember this. The actual words matter less.
To keep me from sin and straying from Him, God has used devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. My life vows destined to be spent in the light irradiating from the tabernacle, and it is to the Heart of Jesus that I dare go for the solution of all my problems
Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.
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.
Prudent is he who can keep silent that part of truth which may be untimely, and by not speaking it, does not spoil the truth of what he said.
You look at the world and see how scary it can be sometimes and still try to deal with the fear. Comedy can deal with the fear and still not paralyze you or tell you that it's going away. You say, OK, you got certain choices here, you can laugh at them and then once you've laughed at them and you have expunged the demon, now you can deal with them. That's what I do when I do my act.
It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.
Comediennes are the lucky ones, because if you're funny, you can be 125 years old and they will still accept you.
But satire, ever moral, ever new, Delights the reader and instructs him, too. She, if good sense refine her sterling page, Oft shakes some rooted folly of the age.
I felt very much like a hooker who had just been told she was a lady of the evening.
Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.
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