150 Best Quotes about California and the Golden State 2026
From its famous coastline to its broad heartland and granite Sierra peaks, the state of California offers something for everyone.
So if you’re looking to learn more then you’re in the right place. Below I’ve curated a bumper list of California quotes that are guaranteed to have you booking your next trip to the Golden State!
Not only can you use these quotes about California to inspire your vacation, but they are also perfect for those looking for California captions for Instagram!
Whilst in California, you might also like to check out:
- The Best Airbnbs in Lake Tahoe
- Most Stylish Airbnbs in Palm Springs
- Beautiful Airbnbs in Joshua Tree
- Best Treehouses in California
- Top Airbnbs in Big Bear Lake
- Los Angeles Sayings, Captions and Quotes
- Best San Diego Sayings and Quotes
- Best San Francisco Quotes and Captions
- Yosemite Quotes and Instagram Captions
- Best Hidden Gems in US to Explore
- Most Scenic Lesser Known National Parks in USA
Best California Quotes for Instagram
“Crushing on Cali.”
“Palm trees, ocean breeze, salty air, sun-kissed hair – California, take me there.”
“The sunsets are best on the West Coast.”
“Beach day is everyday in Cali.”
“The West coast is the best coast.”
California Insta Captions
“Best way to live in California is to be from somewhere else.” – Cormac Mccarthy
“We only have two kinds of weather in California, magnificent and unusual.” – James M Cain
“I’d rather be in prison in California than free anywhere else.” – Inez Haynes Irwin
“It’s the easiest thing in the world to get to California-you just aim yourself west and start walking.” –Rae Carson
Funny California Quotes
Here are my favorite funny California captions:
“It’s a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose on point of your IQ every year.” – Truman Capote
“A new study says that over half of all Californians are obese. In fact, half of Californians are really two-thirds of Californians.” – Jay Leno
“Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn’t cure.” – Ross Macdonald
“I wouldn’t live in California. All that sun makes you sterile.” – Alan Alda
California Puns Instagram
Golden State of Mind
Leaving California is un-bear-able.
Kale-ifornia
Super-California-listicexpialidocious
California is all I avo wanted.
Funny Quotes about California
I won’t burrito-round the bush! California is stunning.
After drinking so much Californian wine, I need a Napa!
California, I sea you.
California is my sand-tuary.
Cali Quotes for Instagram
“Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God.” – Erica Jong
“In California the only way to look like you are getting older is to look like you are getting younger…if you can move your forehead over the age of forty, then people become very suspicious.” –Matt Haig
“Everything is just better in California – the wine, the food, fruits and vegetables, the comforts of living. Even the instrumentalists are generous and curious. Everything is wonderful.” – Beth Anderson
“There are so many different challenges California has; it’s the greatest state in the greatest country in the world. Hasta la vista, baby!” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
Quotes about California Coast
“To capture a California sunset in South Pasadena is to hold an angel’s wings with bated breath.” – Ace Antonio Hall
“I just realized some things make me happier, and the good weather in California makes me happier.” – Bianca Balti
“This is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.” – Henry Miller
“And you know something, because everything that I’ve gotten – my career, my money, my family; everything that I’ve gotten and achieved is because of California.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
Instagram Quotes for California
“Dream of Californication…”
“Hooray for Hollywood.”
“My heart cried out for you, California.” — Joni Mitchell
“Whether they’re for good or bad, all trends in the United States start in California.” – Steve Schmidt
“When California was wild, it was the floweriest part of the continent.” – John Muir
California Quotes Funny
“Going back to Cali, strictly for the weather.” — The Notorious B.I.G.
“In California, they don’t throw their garbage away – they make it into TV shows.” – Woody Allen
“In Hollywood, we have some of the richest unemployed people in the world. They have suntans. Some of them have chauffeurs in Rolls-Royces waiting outside. They have their golf clubs ready in the car. There is no law that says you cannot play golf while being unemployed.” – Alan Sherman
“California is a fine place to live – if you happen to be an orange.” – Fred Allen
“When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, they raised the average intelligence level in both states.” – Will Rogers
California Beach Quotes
“Myths that need clarification: “Everyone in California lives on a white, sandy beach.” False. The only people who live on California beaches are vacationers from Arizona, Utah, and Nevada who own condos.”- Erma Bombeck
“California to me as a concept or as an idea always seems like endless optimism and endless opportunity – when people think of California they think of palm trees and blue skies and gorgeous sunsets and beaches and everything else.” – Mark Hoppus
“In California everyone goes to a therapist, is a therapist, or is a therapist going to a therapist.” – Truman Capote
“Dean’s California–wild, sweaty, important, the land of lonely and exiled and eccentric lovers come to forgather like birds, and the land where everybody somehow looked like broken-down, handsome, decadent movie actors.” – Jack Kerouac
“California, where the spring comes in the fall and the fall comes in the summer and the summer comes in the winter and the winter never comes at all.” – Inez Haynes Irwin
San Francisco Quotes
“Now there’s a grown-up swinging town.” — Frank Sinatra
“I don’t think San Francisco needs defending. I never meet anyone who doesn’t love the place, Americans or others.” – Doris Lessing
“I’m just mad for San Francisco. It is like London and Paris stacked on top of each other.”- Twiggy
“San Francisco is poetry. Even the hills rhyme.” — Pat Montandon
“I left my heart in San Francisco“
“San Fran state of mind”
San Francisco California Saying
“Maybe in San Francisco it wouldn’t feel like the universe was conspiring to keep me in a bubble.” – Heather Demetrios
“San Francisco is the only city I can think of that can survive all the things you people are doing to it and still look beautiful.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
“Anyone who doesn’t have a great time in San Francisco is pretty much gone to me. You go there as a snarky New Yorker thinking it’s politically correct, it’s crunchy granola, it’s vegetarian, and it surprises you every time. It’s a two-fisted drinking town, a carnivorous meat-eating town, it’s dirty and nasty and wonderful.” — Anthony Bourdain
San Francisco Instagram Captions
“It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.” – Jack Kerouac
“I’ve never been somewhere I belonged, but there are places where I think I could be happy. Like San Francisco. Well, do art museums count? Because I feel like I belong in them.” – Heather Demetrios
“I love San Francisco so much. I call it the Emerald city and have been coming here since 1992. I have a few old friends that live here, and my aunt and uncle live in Oakland. I think it’s a magical city. It’s big, hot and very ‘cosmo’ with a small-town feel.” – Andy Cohen
San Francisco California Catchphrases
“One day if I go to heaven… I’ll look around and say ‘it ain’t bad. But it ain’t San Francisco.’” – Herb Caen
“It’s an odd thing but anyone who disappears is said to be in San Francisco.” – Oscar Wilde
“San Francisco has only one drawback: ’tis hard to leave.” – Rudyard Kipling
“San Franciscans are very proud of their city, and they should be. It’s the most beautiful place in the world.” – Robert Redford
“If you’re alive, you can’t be bored in San Francisco. If you’re not alive, San Francisco will bring you to life.” – William Saroyan
Best Los Angeles Quotes for Instagram
“The thing that really surprised me about strip malls in California, specifically Los Angeles, is that they have some really fantastic restaurants.” – Dave Folley
“Darling, in LA, you decide who you are. Every neighborhood has its own culture and population. Once you find the right one for you, you’re home. Los Angeles is a way of life.” – Cara Dee
“When I came to Los Angeles, it was the first time that I ever felt like I belonged somewhere.” — Jennifer Love Hewitt
“Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of.” — Henry Miller
“You got that special kind of sadness, you got that tragic set of charms that only comes from time spent in Los Angeles, makes me wanna wrap you in my arms.” — Dawes
“Los Angeles is like a beauty parlor at the end of the universe.” — Emily Mortimer
“Sometimes I feel like my only friend is the city I live in, the city of angels.” — Red Hot Chili Peppers
Los Angeles Captions
“Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
“Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really dropped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically — any way you want to look at it — everybody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.” –Michael Connelly
“While I’m in L.A. I always make time for my favorite activity which is hiking. The trails in California are amazing, as they are always challenging, and I never get bored from all the beautiful scenery.” – Dylan Lauren
“I see L.A. as a beautiful blonde with dirty underwear.” – David Boreanaz
“There are some things I like about L.A. you can have a really healthy lifestyle, and I love running with the dogs on the beach. It’s just the social scene is horrific!” – Mischa Barton
Los Angeles California Quotes Instagram
“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” – Andy Warhol
“People cut themselves off from their ties of the old life when they come to Los Angeles. They are looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn’t do anywhere else.” – Tom Bradley
“Los Angeles has no seasons, so it’s kind of hard to keep track of time here. The lines between spring, summer, fall, and winter all blur like my vision. I get stuck on repeat for different measures of eternity.” – Kris Kudd
Los Angeles Instagram Captions
“In Los Angeles, by the time you’re 35, you’re older than most of the buildings.” – Delia Ephron
“In Los Angeles, everyone is a star.” — Denzel Washington
“Everything moves a little quicker in Los Angeles” – Kyle Chandler
“You could travel the world, but nothing comes close to the golden coast.”
“I’d be safe and warm if I was in LA, California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.” – The Mamas and the Papas, California Dreaming
Los Angeles California Phrases
“If I can‘t go to Heaven, L.A. is the next best thing.”
“Los Angeles makes the rest of California seem authentic” – Jonathan Culler
“I love Los Angeles, it reinvents itself every two days.” — Billy Connolly
“You’re not done with L.A. until L.A. is done with you.” – Philip Elliott
“Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city” – Dorothy Parker
Southern California Captions Instagram
“Southern California, where the American Dream came too true.” – Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“If you’re a kid in Southern California, somebody – whether it’s you or your parents – somebody throws your hat into the ring and I think everyone had a commercial or two.” – Danny Bonaduce
“There is a lot of California in my… sound, and a ton of it is the laid-back nature of Southern Californians and the beach.” – Brett Young
“Southern California is a nice place, if you could cut out the show-business cancer. It just keeps spreading.” – P.J. O’Rourke
“If you’ve had good gin on a hot day in Southern California with the people you love, you forget Nebraska. The two things cannot coexist. The stronger, better of the two wins.” – Ann Patchett
“Southern California is the land of crazy men.” – Don Carpenter
Big Sur Instagram Captions
Just coasting by.
Redwood you like to go to Big Sur?
I’m Sur I’ve never seen a place this beautiful.
Traveling California was so beautiful, it was a Big Sur-prise.
Big Sur Captions
There’s a sale at Big Sur: Pfeiffer the price of one!
Are you coming Mcway?
Carmel crazy, but is there anywhere prettier than Big Sur?
Camping in Big Sur is in-tents.
Southern California Instagram Captions
“I know they have palm trees in Southern California. I mean I’m not a complete moron, I’ve watched 90210, and everything.” – Meg Cabot
“In the US imagination, Southern California is a still-wet canvas where seekers who make their way here can paint whatever picture they like against a backdrop of natural beauty. My California is different. I grew up feeling watched by ghosts.” – Adonia E. Lugo
“The ocean-bordered southern part of California has always been a place of Hollywood make-believe, casual opulence, suntans and jewellery.” – Dan Jenkins
“I love how Hollywood still wants to perpetuate the myth that beaches in Southern California are warm at night.” – Chris Carmack
“The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way.” – Joan Didion
California IG Captions
“People actually enjoy it when it rains in San Diego because we never get it. It’s a nice change of pace. When you live in Southern California, everybody says, ‘It’s so expensive there.’ I tell them, ‘It’s just a very expensive weather tax.’” – Steve Finley
“California: bordering always on the Pacific and sometimes on the ridiculous. So, why do I live here? Because the sun goes down a block from my house.” – George Carlin
“I first saw the ocean as a kid. We would drive from Arizona in the summer and arrive as the sun was starting to come down over the hill near lagoon in Southern California. We would always sing a song, and it was a big joyous family moment when we came over the hill.” – Ted Danson
Northern Cali Captions
“I think Northern California is the most beautiful place on earth. And I adore New Orleans, but there’s something about the air in SF, for instance. It changes from moment to moment, like one’s thoughts.” – Hilton Als
“I’m not really a Hollywood person. Not that I don’t like L.A., but I’m just a Northern California guy.” – Clint Eastwood
“I’m very much a hippie from Northern California.” – Jessica Chastain
“Growing up in Northern California has had a big influence on my love and respect for the outdoors. When I lived in Oakland, we would think nothing of driving to Half Moon bay and Santa Cruz one day and then driving to the foothills of the sierras the next day.” – Tom Hank
“I grew up in Northern California, where it was consistently in the hundreds in the summertime. My dad didn’t think he should have to turn on the air conditioning when we had a swimming pool in our backyard; it was our built-in air conditioner.” – Summer Sanders
“I live on the beautiful Northern California coast. I have always loved hiking, whale watching and being outdoors.” – Christine Feehan
Quotes about California Girls
“I am the ultimate California girl, which is funny, being that I’m Canadian.” – Pamela Anderson
“This is California. Blondes are like the state flower or something.” – Ian Ziering
“California is an unbelievable state. One day I might be in a spiritual place like Joshua Tree, then before I know it, I’m eating groovy sushi in a mini-mall. I’m a Cali girl through and through.” – Drew Barrymore
“I am a California girl, born and raised, so flip-flops and cutoff shorts are my go-to look. An easy Angeleno uniform, so to speak. But for my role on ‘Suits,’ I’m dressed in Alexander McQueen, Tom Ford, and Prada almost every day. And therein lies the difference. For work, I wear art; in real life, I wear clothes.” – Meghan Markle
“I’m always tan and blonde and don’t really fit into New York. I’m a California girl, even if I try and cover it up with leather.” – Gigi Hadid
Funny Sayings About California
“I don’t bother to look for parking space anymore. As soon as I get near Hollywood Boulevard … I sell.” – Bob Hope
“Out here in California, in the Pacific Ocean, the sharks have a bad attitude.” – Katy Mixon
“The formula for a happy marriage? It’s the same as the one for living in California: when you find a fault, don’t dwell on it.” – Jay Trachman
“Everybody knows what California smog is – that’s fog with the vitamins removed.” – Bob Hope
“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.” – Edward Abbey
“Secretly, I think everyone who makes fun of California really does want to be in California.” – Zooey Deschanel
Joshua Tree Instagram Captions
Joshua Tree rocks!
Just Joshin‘ around
What do you call a hipster Joshua tree? A Joshua twee.
I was trying to come up with a good Joshua Tree joke, but they’re all awful dry.
Don’t desert me in Joshua Tree!
I’m desert-ly in love with Joshua Tree!
Yucca run, but you can’t hide from my love of Joshua trees!
Cute California Trip Captions
“Every time I come, I’m still amazed at the breadth California has. Big Sur, Yosemite, the desert… I love it.” – Theo James
“Life in California is beautiful.” – Oscar Nunez
“California is always in my mind.” – David Hockney
“I think California has the best energy.” – Kevin Gates
“I love California. It definitely represents wild freedom.” – Jenny O.
Instagram Captions about California
“Move to California. Malibu is paradise.” – David Geffen
“The bay area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about heaven while I’m here.” – Billy Graham
“California is a place of invention, a place of courage, a place of vision, a place of the future. People who made California what it is were willing to take risks, think outside convention and build.” – Nicolas Berggruen
“The mornings along the coast where the fog and mist meet with the salty spray of the seas is one of my favourite smells. I love the smell in the evergreen forest just after it rains – The Redwood Forest in California has the coast, too, so you have the best of everything!” – Paul Walker
Best Cali Sayings
“Another blinding California day. They were all blinding here.” – William Bayer
“If they can’t do it in California, it can’t be done anywhere.” – Taylor Caldwell
“California, still a magical vanity fair.” – Eileen Granfors
“California: Sunny nutland.” – Edwin Diamond
“I love driving; driving along the California coastline is the best drive in the world.” – Al Jardine
Quotes on California
“When I came to California, it was the mecca of the world. Every young person on the planet wanted to be here.” – Joni Mitchell
“There are no real Californians. There are only people who live there and people who don’t.” – Laura Kalpakian
“Trust the horticulturalist: California’s genius may be green, but it’s underlying beauty is brown.” – Jared Farmer
“If California is a state of mind, Hollywood is where you take its temperature. There is a peculiar sense in which this city existing mainly on film and tape is our national capital, alas, and not just the capital of California. It’s the place where our children learn how and what to dream and where everything happens just before, or just after, it happens to us.” –Ross Macdonald
Top California Quote
“California is a place where they make too many pictures and not enough actors.” – Walter Winchell
“My California sunrise, there’s a real mist in the air. I think of the mountains. You can smell the farm fields. You can smell the dirt and the lights and the whole sun.” – Jon Pardi
“California is full of homesick people.” – Judy Van Der Veer
“California can and does furnish the best bad things that are obtainable in America.” – Hinton R. Helper
“You haven’t lived until you’ve died in California.” – Mort Sahl
California Coast Quotes
“From the first time I heard Bob Marley or even Sublime, I wanted to move out to California and be near the ocean, start surfing, start being a part of that whole thing.” – Brendon Urie
“Here in California, we passed a law against texting while driving. But there’s no law preventing you from writing a letter while driving.” – Craig Ferguson
“Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.” – Jimmy Carter
“Nature. That’s the one thing that tips the balance in terms of living here in California. Within minutes, I can be in a desert, at the ocean, in a park, and that’s the most nourishing food for my soul.” – Lara Pulver
Best Quote about California
“If you’re in California, and it’s raining, stay home because nobody can drive in the rain. It’s like it’s raining frogs. They’re terrified.” – Adam Ferrara
“California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn’t really need. You can quote me on that.” – Saul Bellow
“Always there is a sort of dream of air between you and the hills of California, a veil of unreality in the intervening air. It gives the hills the bloom that peaches have.” – Stella Benson
“In California, I do like to just chill out and go to the beach, but I love the energy here. I feel very productive when I’m in New York.” – Ashley Greene
“In California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground—or so it was said, and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold.” – Cherie Priest
California Dreaming Quotes
“One of the things I had a hard time getting used to when I came to California in ’78 was Santa Claus in shorts.” – Dennis Franz
“I believe in that old adage that ‘as goes California, so goes the country.’” –Kamala Harris
“Santa Barbara is pleasant. It’s heaven, but with a bit more traffic.” – Matt Hai
“California is where you get to start over.” – Tracy Chevalier
“In California gold was what God was in the rest of the country: everything, everywhere.” – Claire Vaye Watkins
California Summer Quotes
“Made up my mind to make a new start, going to California with an aching in my heart.” — Led Zeppelin – Going to California
“All of a sudden, I feel very old and very tired. Maybe when I get to California, the smog, brush fires, floods, and earthquakes will cheer me up.” – Erma Bombek
“All scenery in California requires distance to give it its highest charm.” ― Mark Twain
“She stood there bright as the sun on that California coast.” — Bob Seger
“Your shadow weighs a ton, driving down the 101. California here we come, right back where we started from.” — Phantom Planet
That’s 150 California Sayings and Quotes
That’s the end of my bumper list, so I hope you’ve managed to find the perfect California quote.
I’d love to know which one is your favorite, and if I’ve missed any awesome quotes about California then please let me know in the comments below.
Planning a Trip to California?
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