Top 200 Michael Caine Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “In England, I was a Cockney actor. In America, I was an actor.”

— Michael Caine

152. “If you’re a movie star, you get the girl, you lose the girl, and then you get her back. But if you’re a character like me, you lose the girl, then you get another one, then you get another one, then you lose them all, then you lose your life.”

— Michael Caine

153. “My circle of friends are not actors at all. None of them are actors, really, because they’re are not available. They’re always off somewhere.”

— Michael Caine

154. “I don’t want to be an English actor doing the greatest American accent you’ve ever heard. I want to be an American doing nothing.”

— Michael Caine

155. “There was a certain moment. I was about 61 – two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying – “I don’t wanna do it. The part’s too small.” And he sent it back to me, he said, “You shouldn’t read the lover. You should read the father.””

— Michael Caine

156. “I learned about life before I went into the theater, which is why I’ve been so happy. I was a soldier.”

— Michael Caine

157. “My view of actors is that basically they’re all harmless lunatics who’d be on the psychiatrist’s couch.”

— Michael Caine

158. “I’ve made the transition from star to character actor and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.”

— Michael Caine

159. “I can’t really act – I’m just trying to make as much money as I can before anyone finds out.”

— Michael Caine

160. “Presenting the Oscars was the most nerve-racking job I have ever done in show business. It’s very much a live show: they have comedy writers waiting in the wings, and as you come off between presentations, they hand you an appropriate gag to tell.”

— Michael Caine

161. “When you’re a young actor you ring your agent every evening. It’s not like when you’re in Hollywood where you do one picture a year. You just hope you get a day on television.”

— Michael Caine

162. “If you held a pistol at my head, I couldn’t tell you who they’re going to vote for Best Actor.”

— Michael Caine

163. “Since I was 19, I’ve had the most fun possible every single day, even when I had a rough life. It was the army which taught me about life, and the theater which taught me how good it could be.”

— Michael Caine

164. “Isaacs, the man who used to sell Dad his jellied.”

— Michael Caine

165. “I feel that I helped the working class by just saying there are no barriers, which I consider to be true.”

— Michael Caine

166. “I was a repertory actor, which meant that I did a play every week. I was a different character every week; for a year, I was doing 40 or 50 characters.”

— Michael Caine

167. “One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow.”

— Michael Caine

168. “What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor’s life, because it’s so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write; and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you’ve got to do some writing.”

— Michael Caine

169. “I’m doing the next Batman. I have to become obsessed about what is offered to me.”

— Michael Caine

170. “The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.”

— Michael Caine

171. “I have a knack of making villainous people a little bit sympathetic, a bit of fun on screen.”

— Michael Caine

172. “I can never be the hero now. You have to be young and all that stuff. I used to be the hero.”

— Michael Caine

173. “I’ve always played very human sort of characters.”

— Michael Caine

174. “I’m a frustrated stand-up comic. If you hand me a microphone and I get one laugh, then I’ll go on for 20 minutes.”

— Michael Caine

175. “Comedy is underrepresented in every actor’s life, because it’s so bloody difficult to write.”

— Michael Caine

176. “If you really want to become an actor, but only providing that acting doesn’t interfere with your golf game, political ambitions and your life, you don’t want to become an actor. Not only is acting more than a part time job, it’s more than a full time job. It’s a full time obsession.”

— Michael Caine

177. “My dialogue coach said to do a Texas accent, you lean on the next word, and that was the clue to me.”

— Michael Caine

178. “About Superman and Batman: the former is how America views itself, the latter, darker character is how the rest of the world views America.”

— Michael Caine

179. “My understanding of women goes only as far as the pleasures.”

— Michael Caine

180. “Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.”

— Michael Caine

181. “For Cider House Rules, I was doing a New England accent.”

— Michael Caine

182. “The greatest luxury is not driving. I didn’t own a car until I was 30, and that was a Rolls-Royce, so it was cheaper to insure a chauffeur. I never want to drive again. My mind is always on other things. I hate parking, and I’m very short-tempered and would get road rage, I’m sure.”

— Michael Caine

183. “I’m very much more choosy now. I do stuff that I really, really, really like.”

— Michael Caine

184. “I’ve never been out with a married woman, never. I respect others properties.”

— Michael Caine

185. “In my opinion, everybody is getting older and older. We have a great deal of dementia because nobody grew old enough to get it.”

— Michael Caine

186. “Not only is acting more than a part-time job, it’s more than a full-time job. It’s a full-time obsession.”

— Michael Caine

187. “I just love to go home, no matter where I am, the most luxurious hotel suite in the world, I love to go home.”

— Michael Caine

188. “It’s funny, people ask me, ‘What would you consider the most romantic track on your record Mr Caine?’ And I say ‘Swollen’ by Bent, and they say ‘I think he’s off his rocker!’”

— Michael Caine

189. “I enjoy making people laugh. The trick is to tell them jokes against yourself. If you praise yourself, your stories aren’t funny.”

— Michael Caine

190. “I don’t think human beings are bad. They’re weak. And that’s what makes ’em bad.”

— Michael Caine

191. “Just because I have made a point of never losing my accent it doesn’t mean I’m an eel-and-pie yob.”

— Michael Caine

192. “I think life has got to develop as you get older, and I don’t want to be wandering along doing the same old thing. I want more out of life.”

— Michael Caine

193. “I have enough money not to do pictures ever. I’m seventy years old. I don’t want to get up at 6:30 in the morning and learn ten pages of dialogue to do with a bunch of creeps I don’t like. It’s gotta be fun for me.”

— Michael Caine

194. “I’ve never taken drugs – if you take a drug of your choice, you get some ecstatic feeling.”

— Michael Caine

195. “I’m hoping there’s an afterlife. As you get older, you hope even more fervently.”

— Michael Caine

196. “We should vote for the welfare of the country, not for the welfare of the party.”

— Michael Caine

197. “First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don’t come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.”

— Michael Caine

198. “I want to stick around with the big boys. I don’t want to be in the old folks home.”

— Michael Caine

199. “I don’t have to work, really, but I do enjoy working, and I do enjoy getting paid.”

— Michael Caine

200. “English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.”

— Michael Caine