Pope John XXIII.....
Visiting a hospital, he asked a boy what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy said either a policeman or a pope. "I would go in for the police if I were you," the pope said. "Anyone can become a pope, look at me!"
"It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about the serious problems afflicting the world and I tell myself, I must talk to the pope about it. Then the next day when I wake up I remember that I am the pope."
In reply to a reporter who asked, "How many people work in the Vatican?", he reportedly said: "About half of them."
When a cardinal complained that a rise in Vatican salaries meant a particular usher earned as much as the cardinal, the pope remarked: "That usher has 10 children; I hope the cardinal doesn't."
When he went to visit a friend at the nearby Hospital of the Holy Spirit in the evening, the nun answering the door said: "Holy Father, I'm the mother superior of the Holy Spirit." He replied: "Lucky you! What a job! I'm just the Vicar of Christ " .
Not long after he was elected pope, Blessed John was walking in the streets of Rome. A woman passed him and said to her friend, "My God, he's so fat!" Overhearing what she said, he turned around and replied, "Madame, I trust you understand that the papal conclave is not exactly a beauty contest."
He once wrote: "There are three ways to face ruin: women, gambling and farming. My father chose the most boring one."
A Vatican official told the pope it would be "absolutely impossible" to open the Second Vatican Council by 1963. "Fine, we'll open it in 1962," he answered. And he did.