“Popes come and go, empires clash, new worlds arise, but Rome is eternally Rome, which is to say that its people were busy as always sweating, swearing, eating, fornicating, occasionally praying, and without surcease, gossiping.”

“New Rome will be destroyedBy the attacks of new vandals.God always remains silent.”

“In Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures.”

“Christian legend later claimed that Peter also went to Rome and there became head of the Christian community, that is, a bishop. Both Peter and Paul, according to the Catholic version, died as martyrs in the Eternal City. Paul definitely went to Rome, and may have been martyred there. But that Peter, a very devout, timid Jewish fisherman, uneducated, and knowing little or no Greek, and no Latin, would have ended in Rome is most unlikely. Thus the whole claim of later bishops of Rome (the popes) that their authority in the Church was derived from its alleged first bishop, Saint Peter, was likely wishful thinking, if not an absolute hoax, that developed in the late second century A.D.”

“Rome changed the New Testament catholicity (which purifies and sanctifies as it's proper domain the whole of life) and has substituted in its place a dualism which separates the supernatural from the natural.”

“It's also important to read the newspaper every day to see how the pope is doing. Here in Rome, the pope's health is recorded daily in the newspaper, very much like weather, or the TV schedule. Today the pope is tired. Yesterday, the pope was less tired than he is today. Tomorrow, we expect that the pope will not be so tired as he was today.”