Top 200 Michael Caine Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “When you are prepared, you are able to subdue your fear, control your nerves, channel your energy, and enter that state of highly alert relaxation that is spontaneity’s best friend.”

— Michael Caine

52. “The Quiet American is anti the people who took them into the Vietnam War.”

— Michael Caine

53. “People say to me, why did you do those films, and I say, for money. It wasn’t for diamond rings or kidney shaped swimming pools in Beverly Hills, it was in order to improve the lot of everyone around me.”

— Michael Caine

54. “And to Tom Cruise, for if you had won this, your asking price would have gone down so fast. Do you have any idea what supporting actors get paid? We get only one trailer, a small one, in the back.”

— Michael Caine

55. “I never bring a role home with me. The moment they say, ‘It’s a wrap,’ it’s gone completely. I’m a totally ruthless professional, and life is my family, not my work.”

— Michael Caine

56. “My wife, my daughters, even my grandchildren are funny. You’ve got to keep a sense of humor because anger destroys you.”

— Michael Caine

57. “You can’t get blase about something you haven’t done yet.”

— Michael Caine

58. “When I look in the mirror, I see someone who’s happy with how he looks, because I was never one of the handsome Hollywood people. And I’ve had success as I’ve gotten older, because I’m able to play characters. I no longer get the girl, but I get the part.”

— Michael Caine

59. “I’ve done my job and I’ve got the picture out there, and I’m very happy with it.”

— Michael Caine

60. “I spent my life in the library reading books.”

— Michael Caine

61. “To be a movie star, you have to invent yourself.”

— Michael Caine

62. “I don’t like getting up early in the morning and learning all that stuff. I work with offers that I can’t refuse.”

— Michael Caine

63. “I’ve been in every disco in the world. I saw a picture of my wife Shakira and I dancing in Studio 54; I didn’t even know someone had taken that picture.”

— Michael Caine

64. “You’re your first best audience, long before anybody else hears you. So don’t be an easy audience. Keep asking for more.”

— Michael Caine

65. “Movie actors earn their living and learn their craft through listening and reacting.”

— Michael Caine

66. “Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.”

— Michael Caine

67. “I need a challenge ’cause I don’t get the girl anymore.”

— Michael Caine

68. “I don’t do it often, but I do cry. I also laugh a lot; people tell me I’m funny and I do like to laugh.”

— Michael Caine

69. “If you’re a movie actor, you’re on your own – you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.”

— Michael Caine

70. “A lot of movie stars are not great actors; they’re just very good-looking. And when they start to age and they don’t have the looks any more, then it’s over.”

— Michael Caine

71. “I don’t want to sound like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, but I do think there should be some sort of national service for young men.”

— Michael Caine

72. “I usually control the environment I’m in, but my control is very quiet and subtle.”

— Michael Caine

73. “I’m always slightly envious of people who become extremely rich without anyone knowing who the hell they are, like financiers.”

— Michael Caine

74. “It’s much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.”

— Michael Caine

75. “I don’t worry about the last shot or the next shot. I concentrate. Every shot gets a clean slate. And when a shot is over, I wipe it out absolutely. Tell a joke or something. If you worry about how you looked, how well you did, you’ll go insane.”

— Michael Caine

76. “The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought, That’s what I want to do.”

— Michael Caine

77. “I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn’t.”

— Michael Caine

78. “It’s vital to have your own space so you aren’t constantly in each other’s pockets.”

— Michael Caine

79. “This is your life, Larry. Learn to enjoy what you’ve got.”

— Michael Caine

80. “You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one.”

— Michael Caine

81. “If I see any injustice done, I have a big enough mouth and the position to open up about it.”

— Michael Caine

82. “I’m not in the Lifetime Achievement area yet-I’m still battling it out in the trenches.”

— Michael Caine

83. “I always exposed the weakness rather than the nastiness.”

— Michael Caine

84. “I’m looking for me to disappear, and the acting to disappear, and all you see is a real person.”

— Michael Caine

85. “You can see all sorts of things in film acting if you know where to look and what to look for. One thing I often notice is that the actor is looking for his mark, the place where he has to stand to be in the right place in the shot.”

— Michael Caine

86. “Nobody’s a criminal to himself. I never play a criminal like a bad person.”

— Michael Caine

87. “The trouble with women? Elbows.”

— Michael Caine

88. “No English director would’ve cast me as an officer, I promise you. Not one.”

— Michael Caine

89. “You have to remember, I never became successful or wealthy till I was 30.”

— Michael Caine

90. “I see myself as 38, but you don’t notice it.”

— Michael Caine

91. “Am I a car aficionado? No: for me, cars have always been just for transport. I didn’t even know anyone who had a car until I was 14 or 15.”

— Michael Caine

92. “If I work with a bad actor, my reaction is to immediately become worse than they are.”

— Michael Caine

93. “Someone said to me the other day: “Well, you’re eventually going to live until 110.” And I said: “Well, who’s going to keep me? What age do I retire? 100?” How are you going to live all those years and who is going to keep you doing it? I have a couple of grandchildren now so I’m banking on them.”

— Michael Caine

94. “Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast.”

— Michael Caine

95. “I had been in that part of the world as a soldier in Korea, so I had been interested in Vietnam.”

— Michael Caine

96. “I love the start of autumn when the trees in my garden change the colour of their leaves in one last dazzling display.”

— Michael Caine

97. “I’m not tough anymore, I’m 82.”

— Michael Caine

98. “I’ve always loved reprehensible people because they’re so much more interesting to play on screen.”

— Michael Caine

99. “If you’re a leading actor you don’t work with another actor. You work with a lady.”

— Michael Caine

100. “I try to make everyone around me feel comfortable.”

— Michael Caine