15 Most Iconic Quotes From Casablanca

As one of the most celebrated movies in Hollywood history, there are endless Casablanca quotes that have stood the test of time and contributed to its great, long-lasting legacy. The 1942 romantic drama film starring classic Hollywood legends Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman was written by twin brothers Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein, along with Howard Koch. The impact of Casablanca’s script, which is full of quotable lines, cannot be denied over 80 years after its initial release.

There has been a long debate over the title of the greatest movie ever, and Casablanca’s dialogue makes it easy to see why it’s frequently brought up as a contender. Casablanca tells the story of American expatriate and club owner Rick (Bogart), who is confronted with his past when his ex-lover, Ilsa (Bergman), shows up in Casablanca with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), fleeing the Nazis and looking for Rick’s help. The intriguing plot, complicated characters, and heartbreaking romance are all represented in the best Casablanca quotes.

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15 “Louis, I Think This Is The Beginning Of A Beautiful Friendship.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

Casablanca’s bittersweet ending is a major part of what has cemented its legacy and is the scene featuring several of the movie’s best lines. There is great dialogue from the Epsteins and Koch throughout the film, but the final line is one of the best and most enduring when viewers think of Casablanca.

Throughout Casablanca, Louis Renault (Claude Rains), the local corrupt prefect of police, has an interesting relationship with Rick. He clearly respects the bar owner, but Rick is insistent on staying neutral and not getting close to anyone despite Renault’s best efforts to get him on his side. By the end of Casablanca, both Rick and Renault have undergone great growth as individuals and as a pair. This leads to Rick’s final line:

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

The closest friend Rick has in Casablanca is his house pianist, Sam, who he knew long before he became the hardened man viewers meet at the start of the film, but the ending sees him opening up to a brighter future. The burgeoning friendship between Rick and Louis would have been explored further in the scrapped Casablanca 2, but fortunately for the film’s legacy, this was the true last line from Rick Blaine.

14 “I Never Make Plans That Far Ahead.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

Rick Blaine proves himself to be an honorable and even heroic man by the end of the movie, but there are times earlier in the story when he is a hard character to like. This is especially true of his relationship with Yvonne, a fellow ex-patriate living in Casablanca who has a casual relationship with Rick. However, the way he is so dismissive to her is hard to watch at times. When she approaches him in the club and asks where he was the night before, he answers, “That’s so long ago, I don’t remember.”

However, when Yvonne asks if she’ll see Rick that night, he responds “I never make plans that far ahead.” While it is mean-spirited, it also shows how Rick’s worldview has changed after his failed romance with Ilsa. He pushes people away so that he doesn’t get hurt again. However, in the process, he fails to consider how he is hurting these people.

13 “I’m Shocked! Shocked To Find That Gambling Is Going On In Here.”

Louis Renault (Claude Rains)

Casablanca is famous for having some of the most romantic movie quotes of all time, but there are also more than a few that highlight just how funny the movie is as well. A lot of these lines come from Captain Renault and his complete ambivalence about being perceived as a fair or upstanding lawman. He will fully present himself as a hypocrite and backstabber without showing any shame for it.

When the tides begin to turn and Renault sees that his friendship with Rick can cause him problems, he shuts the club down. When Rick questions on what grounds he can do this, Renault expresses utter shock that Rick has allowed illegal gambling to take place in his club. In a moment of perfect comedic timing, a croupier comes over with Renault’s gambling winnings and Renault thanks him without acknowledging the irony at all.

12 “If I Gave You Any Thought I Probably Would.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

Casablanca is filled with morally gray characters, many of them just looking to survive in the tense world they find themselves in. Early in the movie, the character of Ugarte is introduced, a petty crook responsible for killing two German couriers and stealing their visas. Ugarte plans to sell the visas and seeks out Rick’s help in keeping them safe. Ugarte acknowledges the murder and extortion of his crimes are off-putting to the common person.

Ugarte assumes that Rick also despises him, but Rick coolly responds with this quote. It is a line reminiscent of Don Draper’s epic takedown of a colleague in Mad Men who claims he feels sorry for Don only for Don to respond, “I don’t think about you at all.” While it is a great noir character line from Rick, it also shows the way he likes to keep his head down and not come down on one side or the other.

11 “If That Plane Leaves The Ground And You’re Not With Him, You’ll Regret It. Maybe Not Today. Maybe Not Tomorrow, But Soon And For The Rest Of Your Life.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

Despite all of his faults, the iconic ending of Casablanca shows the self-sacrifice Rick is willing to make for what he knows is the right thing. Though they had rekindled their romance and promised to be with each other, Rick is the one to acknowledge that he and Ilsa are not meant to be together in the end and that she needs to leave Casablanca with Victor, even if it hurts him to admit it.

Rick comes to this decision to save Ilsa’s life, to ensure that Victor’s important work continues, and also because he knows it is the kind of life that she deserves. Rick is strong enough to admit to himself that, while Ilsa might choose to stay if he let her, she would eventually realize that she made the wrong choice. Being able to communicate this to her is an act of heroism that allows her to escape to a better life.

10 “I’ll Be There At Ten.”

Louis Renault (Claude Rains)

It is perhaps not surprising that Rick and Renault become friends in the end, as many of their most memorable Casablanca quotes show how they are similar in a lot of ways. They are both men who secretly have a bigger heart than they let on, but are also very open about only serving their own self-interests. The difference is, that while Rick’s self-centered behavior is stoic and grim, Renault is clearly enjoying himself.

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One of the many things that Renault does as a corrupt police officer is accept bribes. In one instance, a young couple is looking for his help and wanting to make a deal with Renault. While they are clearly eager and agitated, Renault is laid back. He shows how little he takes this kind of business seriously when the couple anxiously tells him they will meet Renault at his office at six tomorrow morning and he responds “I’ll be there at ten.”

9 “Of All The Gin Joints In All The Towns In The World, She Walks Into Mine.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

Casablanca’s story unfolds over two timelines, the present one that takes place in Casablanca in 1942 and the past one that takes place in Paris in 1940, just before the Battle of France where Vichy France was established and parts of the country were placed under Nazi occupation. Rick and Ilsa had planned to flee Paris together upon the news of the invasion, but Ilsa didn’t show up at the train station as planned, leaving Rick with a note but no explanation.

The first time Rick saw Ilsa again in those two years that had passed was at his bar with her husband, leaving him understandably angry and confused. After their charged reunion, Rick drank his sorrows away while Sam attempted to lift his spirits. Rick told Sam in this iconic Casablanca line, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, she walks into mine.”

This quote conveys all of his complicated emotions at Ilsa appearing in Rick’s Café Américain, including shock. It also suggested that their reunion was perhaps fated, as she could have ended up anywhere in the world, but she found herself in Casablanca and with Rick once again. Humphrey Bogart’s performance sells the conflict in Rick as her reappearance stirs up a lot of memories.

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8 “Play It, Sam.”

Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman)

“Play it, Sam,” is not only one of the most famous lines from Casablanca, but it’s one of the most misquoted lines in film history. It is said by Ilsa when she requests Sam play the 1931 jazz song that Casablanca made a classic, “As Time Goes By.” It is sung in the movie by Dooley Wilson (Sam) at multiple points, as it had become Ilsa and Rick’s song back when they were in Paris.

Due to the fact that she’d heard him play it again, many have misquoted the Casablanca line as “Play it again, Sam,” rather than “play it, Sam,” which has just made this Casablanca quote even more iconic. However, the simple lines speak to the theme of this story of the time Rick and Ilsa had was stolen from them and they keep floating back to those memories as they are all that they have.

7 “Here’s Looking At You, Kid.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

Casablanca is one of the most quotable movies of all time and “Here’s looking at you, kid,” said twice by Rick to Ilsa, is one of the most iconic movie lines ever uttered on screen. The first time he said it to her was in Paris as a toast to Ilsa and what he believed would be their bright future away from France and the impending invasion. Rick was so in love with her that just looking at her face was something to be celebrated, but the second time he said it, it carried a much greater weight.

“Here’s looking at you, kid” is the heartbreaking line that Rick delivered to Ilsa before he sent her away with Laszlo to Lisbon, having made the difficult decision to stay behind. It was both an acknowledgment of their past and the future that they could sadly never have. It was another way for Rick to tell Ilsa he loved her one last time, making for a bittersweet ending to Casablanca and their relationship.

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6 “We’ll Always Have Paris.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

In the same tearful goodbye between Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca, she was reluctant to leave him, having already done it once before. She told him that she promised she’d never leave him again, to which Rick replied, “We’ll always have Paris.” This small part of the longer quote, in which he explained that they lost it once but were able to get it back the night before in Casablanca, is what has stood out for all these years.

The line was said by Rick to let Ilsa know he’d never forget their time together in Paris and that nothing that had happened or would happen could change or tarnish it. It’s such a great quote that it has a life far beyond Casablanca, with people using, “We’ll always have …” to reference any special, untouchable time. The line was even used as the title of a 1988 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which had a plot line inspired by the classic film.

5 “Round Up The Usual Suspects.”

Louis Renault (Claude Rains)

Renault’s character growth in Casablanca is shown through the movie’s last scene when he decides not to turn Rick in for murdering German Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) and helping Ilsa and Laszlo escape. Despite Louis having worked on Strasser’s side and against Laszlo for the majority of the movie, his telling the officers to “Round up the usual suspects” when they arrived and discovered Strasser’s body proved where his true loyalties lay.

Renault is a corrupt police officer but is using his corruption in a way that the audience can endorse at this moment. He knows who is responsible for the murder, but he is willing to sweep it under the rug and pin it on some “usual suspect” or known criminal just to cover his own tracks. The Casablanca line even inspired the title of The Usual Suspects, making the quote even more popular in the 1990s.

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4 “Kiss Me. Kiss Me As If It Were The Last Time.”

Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman)

Bogart’s Rick wasn’t the only character in the cast of Casablanca capable of delivering memorable, romantic lines, with Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa having a few incredibly memorable quotes of her own. However, as romantic as her time with Rick was, she is a character who always carries a sense of sadness with her as she knows better than most that happiness won’t last. In a flashback to their time together in Paris just before the invasion, Ilsa told Rick:

“Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.”

Rick does, but he is unaware that it actually would be the last kiss between the two of them as she wasn’t truly planning to follow him out of Paris. It is an early indication that Ilsa does love Rick but knows she is being torn from him. Bogart and Bergman’s incredible chemistry is one of the reasons the movie remains one of the greatest movie romances of all time.

3 “With The Whole World Crumbling, We Pick This Time To Fall In Love.”

Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman)

In that same Casablanca scene of their last moments together in Paris, there are sounds of warfare outside their window. The juxtaposition of the bombs going off in the background as Rick and Ilsa kiss and Sam plays the piano encapsulates the complex nature of their relationship and Casablanca itself. Ilsa vocalized this with the incredibly memorable quote:

“With the whole world crumbling, we pick this time to fall in love.”

In saying this, she acknowledged that timing isn’t on their side, contributing to the longstanding trope, “right person, wrong time,” while also slyly hinting to Rick that they won’t be able to stay together because of the war. Casablanca would go on to inspire a lot of other wartime romances that show the bittersweet way people can find soulmates only for the world around them to fall apart. It makes for a more intense albeit tragic love story.

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2 “Go Ahead And Shoot. You’ll Be Doing Me A Favor.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

One of the most dramatic scenes in Casablanca happened when Isla came to Rick in his closed club to ask him for the letters. When Rick refused, she pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot him. Rick reacted to this by telling Ilsa, “Go ahead and shoot. You’ll be doing me a favor.” The calm delivery from Bogart revealed just how in love Rick still was.

The moment that Isla pulled a gun on him, Rick realized what she was willing to do for Laszlo. By saying, “You’ll do me a favor,” he shared his belief that if she were to choose Laszlo over him, his life would be over anyway, so she might as well shoot. Fortunately, Ilsa didn’t do what Rick told her to, instead confessing that she was still in love with him. Though they didn’t end up together in Casablanca, this line is further proof of their deep, complicated love for each other.

1 “I Came To Casablanca For The Waters.”

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart)

From any other actor, the line “I came to Casablanca for the waters” might have been a throwaway. However, Humphrey Bogart makes it iconic with his performance of the cynical Rick, whose deadpan gives him a sense of humor that works for the character and the tone of the film. When Louis pointed out to him that Casablanca is a desert, he dryly said, “I was misinformed.”

Rick is a character who spends most of Casablanca holding his cards close to his chest, but his relationship with Isla reveals great emotional depth as the story unfolds. However, seeing him as the cynical and world-weary hero earlier in the movie helps to make him one of the most iconic movie characters of all time. The dry wit and contempt for the world is a surprisingly charming mix that Bogart carries effortlessly.

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Set in Morocco against the backdrop of the Second World War, Casablanca stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, a nightclub owner whose past comes back to haunt him when an old lover comes to ask for his help in smuggling her and her current husband out of the Nazi-occupied city. Ingrid Bergman stars alongside Bogart as Ilsa, with a further cast that includes Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, and Dooley Wilson. 

Director Michael Curtiz Release Date January 23, 1943 Cast Humphrey Bogart , Ingrid Bergman , Paul Henreid , Claude Rains , Conrad Veidt , Sydney Greenstreet Runtime 102 minutes Studio(s) Warner Bros. Pictures Writers Julius J. Epstein , Philip G. Epstein , Howard Koch , Murray Burnett , Joan Alison , Casey Robinson Expand

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