- Baron St. Fontanel: A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.
- Sabrina Fairchild: I might as well be reaching for the moon.
- Baron St. Fontanel: The moon?
- [laughs]
- Baron St. Fontanel: Oh, you young people! You are so old-fashioned. Have you not heard? We are building rockets to reach the moon!
- Sabrina Fairchild: Maybe you should go to Paris, Linus.
- Linus Larrabee: To Paris?
- Sabrina Fairchild: It helped me a lot. Have you ever been there?
- Linus Larrabee: [thinks] Oh, yes. Yes. Once. I was there for thirty-five minutes.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Thirty-five MINUTES?
- Linus Larrabee: Changing planes. I was on my way to Iraq on an oil deal.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Oh, but Paris isn't for changing planes, it's... it's for changing your outlook, for... for throwing open the windows and letting in... letting in la vie en rose.
- Linus Larrabee: [sadly] Paris is for lovers. Maybe that's why I stayed only thirty-five minutes.
- Linus Larrabee: Why're you looking at me that way?
- Sabrina Fairchild: All night long I've had the most terrible impulse to do something.
- Linus Larrabee: Oh, never resist an impulse, Sabrina, especially if it's terrible.
- Sabrina Fairchild: I'm gonna do it.
- [reaching out and turning down the brim of Linus' Homburg]
- Sabrina Fairchild: There!
- Linus Larrabee: What's that for?
- Sabrina Fairchild: We can't have you walking up and down the Champs Elysees looking like a tourist undertaker! Another thing, never a briefcase in Paris and never an umbrella. There's a law.
- Linus Larrabee: How am I ever going to get along in Paris without someone like you? Who'll be there to help me with my French, to turn down the brim of my hat?
- Sabrina Fairchild: Suppose you meet someone on the boat the very first day out? A perfect stranger.
- Linus Larrabee: I have a better suppose, Sabrina. Suppose I were ten years younger. Suppose you weren't in love with David. Suppose I asked you to... I suppose I'm just talking nonsense.
- Sabrina Fairchild: I suppose so.
- Linus Larrabee: Suppose you sing that song again. Slowly.
- Sabrina: [writing to her father] I have learned how to live, how to be IN the world and OF the world, and not just to stand aside and watch. And I will never, never again run away from life. Or from love, either.
- David Larrabee: What's so constructive about marrying Elizabeth Tyson?
- Linus Larrabee: [offering a sheet of plastic] Taste it.
- David Larrabee: [licks it] It's sweet.
- Linus Larrabee: That's right. It's made of sugar cane.
- David Larrabee: Sugar cane. Wait a minute. This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Tysons own the largest holdings of sugar cane in Puerto Rico, would it?
- Linus Larrabee: Second largest. The largest have no daughter.
- David Larrabee: It's all beginning to make sense. Mr. Tyson owns the sugarcane, you own the formula for the plastics, and I'm supposed to be offered up as a human sacrifice on the altar of the industrial progress. Is that it?
- Linus Larrabee: You make it sound so vulgar, David, as if the son of the hot dog dynasty were being offered in marriage to the daughter of the mustard king. Surely... surely you don't object to Elizabeth Tyson just because her father happens to have twenty million dollars? That's very narrow-minded of you, David.
- David Larrabee: Just one thing you overlooked. I haven't proposed, and she hasn't accepted.
- Linus Larrabee: Oh, don't worry. I proposed and Mr. Tyson accepted.
- David Larrabee: Did you kiss him?
- Linus Larrabee: [slow dancing with Sabrina] How do you say in French my sister has a yellow pencil?
- Sabrina Fairchild: Ma soeur a un crayon jaune.
- Linus Larrabee: How do you say my brother has a lovely girl?
- Sabrina Fairchild: Mon frère a une gentille petite amie.
- Linus Larrabee: And how do you say I wish I were my brother?
- Thomas Fairchild: He's still David Larrabee, and you're still the chauffeur's daughter, and you're still reaching for the moon.
- Sabrina Fairchild: No, father. The moon's reaching for ME.
- David Larrabee: You don't live here!
- Sabrina: Yes, I do.
- David Larrabee: I live here!
- Sabrina: Hi, neighbor.
- Linus Larrabee: If you love her, take her. This is the 20th century.
- Oliver Larrabee: The 20th century? I could pick a century out of a hat, blindfolded, and get a better one.
- Sabrina Fairchild: I hate girls that giggle all the time.
- Thomas Fairchild: You hate every girl David looks at.
- David Larrabee: I could have sworn I knew every pretty girl on the North Shore.
- Sabrina Fairchild: I could have sworn you took in more territory than that.
- Linus Larrabee: [into a dictaphone] Interoffice memo, Linus Larrabee to David Larrabee. Dear David, this is to remind you that you are a junior partner of Larrabee Industries. Our building is located at 30 Broad Street, New York City. Your office is on the 22nd floor. Our normal week is Monday through Friday. Our working day is 9:00 to 5:00. Should you find this inconvenient, you are free to retire under the Larrabee pension plan. Having been with us one year, this will entitle you to sixty-five cents a month for the rest of your life.
- Thomas Fairchild: It wouldn't have worked out really, darling. The papers and everybody else would've said how fine and democratic for a Larrabee to marry a chauffeur's daughter, but would they praise the chauffeur's daughter? No. Democracy can be a wickedly unfair thing, Sabrina. Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich.
- Thomas Fairchild: [reading a letter from Sabrina] ... I decided to be sensible the other day and tore up David's picture. Could you please airmail me some Scotch tape?
- Linus Larrabee: [after Sabrina puts a romantic record on the phonograph] Sabrina.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Yes?
- Linus Larrabee: Do you mind if we turn this off?
- Sabrina Fairchild: Why?
- Linus Larrabee: [pained] Because.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Don't you like it?
- Linus Larrabee: I used to like it.
- Sabrina Fairchild: [taking the record off] Certain songs bring back certain memories to me, too. Did you love her?
- Linus Larrabee: I'd rather not talk about it.
- Sabrina Fairchild: I'm sorry.
- Linus Larrabee: That's all right.
- Sabrina Fairchild: It's so strange to think of you being touched by a woman. I always thought you walked alone.
- Linus Larrabee: No man walks alone from choice.
- Sabrina Fairchild: As a child I used to watch you, from the window over the garage. Coming and going, always wearing your black homburg and carrying a briefcase and umbrella. I thought you could never belong to anyone. Never care for anyone.
- Linus Larrabee: Oh, yes, the cold businessman behind his marble desk, way up in his executive suite. No emotions, just ice water in his veins and ticker tape coming from his heart. And yet... one day that same cold businessman, high up in a skyscraper, opens a window, steps out on a ledge... stands there for three hours wondering... if he should jump.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Because of her?
- The Professor: Bonjour, mesdames et monsiuers. Yesterday we have learned the correct way how to boil water. Today we will learn the correct way how to crack an egg. Voilà! An egg. Now, an egg is not a stone; it is not made of wood, it is a living thing. It has a heart. So when we crack it, we must not torment it. We must be merciful and execute it quickly, like with the guillotine.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Just imagine, you press a button and factories go up, or you pick up a telephone and a hundred tankers set out for Persia, or you switch on the dictaphone and say, "Buy all of Cleveland and move it to Pittsburgh."
- Linus Larrabee: A new product has been found, something of use to the world, so a new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines are brought in, a harbor is dug, and you're in business. It's purely coincidental of course that people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar, and barefooted kids wear shoes and have their teeth fixed and their faces washed. What's wrong with the kind of an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds and, uh, movies on a Saturday night? Miss McCardle, will you send in the secretaries?
- Miss McCardle: Yes, Mr. Larrabee.
- David Larrabee: Now you make me feel like a heel. If I don't marry Elizabeth, some kid is going to be running around Puerto Rico barefoot with cavities in his teeth.
- Oliver Larrabee: I can never remember that garage girl's name.
- Linus Larrabee: Sabrina.
- Oliver Larrabee: Sabrina! What right has a chauffeur got to call his daughter Sabrina?
- Linus Larrabee: What would you suggest... Ethel?
- [first lines]
- Sabrina Fairchild: [voiceover] Once upon a time, on the north shore of Long Island, some thirty miles from New York, there lived a small girl on a large estate. The estate was very large indeed, and had many servants. There were gardeners to take care of the gardens, and a tree surgeon on a retainer. There was a boatman to take care of the boats: to put them in the water in the spring, and scrape their bottoms in the winter. There were specialists to take care of the grounds: the outdoor tennis court and the indoor tennis court, the outdoor swimming pool and the indoor swimming pool. And there was a man of no particular title who took care of the small pool in the garden for a goldfish named George. Also on the estate there was a chauffeur by the name of Fairchild who had been imported from England years ago together with a new Rolls-Royce. Fairchild was a fine chauffeur of considerable polish, like the eight cars in his care, and he had a daughter by the name of Sabrina. It was the eve of the annual six-meter yacht races, and as had been traditional on Long Island for the past thirty years, the Larrabees were giving a party. It never rained on the night of the Larrabee party. The Larrabees wouldn't have stood for it. There were four Larrabees in all - father, mother, and two sons. Maude and Oliver Larrabee were married in nineteen hundred and six, and among their many wedding presents was the town house in New York and this estate for weekends. The town house has since been converted into Saks Fifth Avenue. Linus Larrabee, the elder son, graduated from Yale, where his classmates voted him The Man Most Likely To Leave His Alma Mater Fifty Million Dollars. His brother, David, went through several of the best eastern colleges for short periods of time, and through several marriages for even shorter periods of time. He is now a successful six-goal polo player and is listed on Linus's tax return as a six hundred dollar deduction. Life was pleasant among the Larrabees, for this was as close to heaven as one could get on Long Island.
- The Professor: [inspecting the students' soufflés] Too low. Too pale. Too heavy. Too low. Too *high*, you are exaggerating. Fair. So-so. Sloppy.
- [he gets to the Baron]
- The Professor: Mm. Superb. My dear Baron, you have not lost your touch.
- [he looks at Sabrina's]
- The Professor: Much too low.
- Sabrina Fairchild: [looking at her soufflé] I don't know what happened.
- Baron St. Fontanel: I will tell you what happened: you forgot to turn on the oven.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Oh!
- Thomas Fairchild: [reading aloud a letter from Sabrina] He came to the cooking school to take a refresher course in soufflés and liked me so much he decided to stay on for the fish.
- Linus Larrabee: I always make it a point to have controls.
- Mr. Tyson: Yes, it's your good luck the kids are so fond of each other.
- Linus Larrabee: I always make it a point to be lucky, too.
- Thomas Fairchild: Democracy can be a wickedly unfair thing, Sabrina. Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich.
- Thomas Fairchild: I like to think of life as a limousine. Though we are all riding together, we must remember our places. There's a front seat and a back seat and a window in between.
- Linus Larrabee: Fairchild, I never realized it before, but you're a terrible snob.
- Thomas Fairchild: Yes, sir.
- Oliver Larrabee: Now, I'm not saying that all Larrabees have been saints. There was a Thomas Larrabee who was hung for piracy, and there was a Benjamin Larrabee who was a slave trader, and there was my great-great uncle, Joshua Larrabee, who was shot in Indiana while attempting to rob a train, but there NEVER was a Larrabee who behaved as David Larrabee has behaved here tonight!
- David Larrabee: And exactly what have I done?
- David Larrabee: I feel so stupid I could kill myself.
- Sabrina Fairchild: You'll be all right in a minute.
- Sabrina Fairchild: Kiss me, David.
- David Larrabee: Love to, Sabrina.
- [kisses her]
- Sabrina Fairchild: Again. That's better.
- David Larrabee: What's the matter, darling? You're not worried about us, are you? Because I'm not. So there'll be a big stink in the family. So who cares?
- Sabrina Fairchild: David... I don't think I'm going to have dinner with Linus. I don't wanna go out with him.
- David Larrabee: [chuckling] Why not?
- Sabrina Fairchild: I want to be near you.
- David Larrabee: Oh, I know how you feel, Sabrina. It must be an awful bore, but if Linus wants to take you out, let's be nice about it. It's very important. He's our only ally. Don't you see, Father will try to cut off my allowance and send me off to Larrabee Copper in Butte, Montana, and we don't wanna go to Butte Montana, do we?
- Sabrina Fairchild: Hold me close, David.
- David Larrabee: We'll have a wonderful time, darling. We'll build ourselves a raft and drift across the Pacific, like Kon Tiki, or climb the highest mountain like Annapurna. Just the two of us.
- David Larrabee: What makes you so sure Sabrina still wants me?
- Linus Larrabee: Of course she wants you. She's wanted you all her life.
- David Larrabee: Until you came along in that silly homburg.
- Linus Larrabee: Well, suppose you straighten that silly straw hat and on your way. You'll miss the boat.
- David Larrabee: Don't worry. I won't miss the boat. I'm going.
- [starts walking towards the door]
- David Larrabee: Funniest thing. Linus Larrabee, the man who doesn't burn, doesn't scorch, doesn't melt... suddenly throws a twenty million dollar deal out the window.
- [stops at the door]
- David Larrabee: Are you sure *you* don't want to go with her?
- Linus Larrabee: Why should I want to go with her?
- David Larrabee: Because you're in love with her.
- Linus Larrabee: She doesn't want money; she wants love.
- Oliver Larrabee: I thought they discontinued that model.
- Thomas Fairchild: May I ask, sir, what exactly are your intentions?
- Linus Larrabee: My intentions? Unethical, reprehensible but very practical.
- Thomas Fairchild: I beg your pardon?
- David Larrabee: Morning, Linus. Where're you off to?
- Linus Larrabee: The office. Where do you think?
- David Larrabee: The office? On Sunday?
- Linus Larrabee: Today is Wednesday.
- David Larrabee: Wednesday?
- David Larrabee: I've been trying to write a poem to her but I... I can't seem to finish it. What rhymes with "glass"?
- Linus Larrabee: Glass... Glass... Uh...
- [snaps fingers]
- Linus Larrabee: "Alas"!
- Oliver Larrabee: Seems to me there ought to be a less extravagant way of getting a chauffeur's daughter out of one's hair.
- Linus Larrabee: How would you do it? You can't even get a little olive out of a jar!
- Linus Larrabee: [Linus has decided to cancel the wedding] When's your mother's birthday?
- Miss McCardle: Why?
- Linus Larrabee: No self-respecting prime minister would offer kronen.
- Sabrina Fairchild: No self-respecting waitress would take dollars.
- Charles - Butler: Oh, you should see her! You should see Sabrina! The prettiest girl, the prettiest dress, the best dancer, the belle of the ball! And such poise, as though she belonged up there!
- Thomas Fairchild: I don't like it.
- Jenny - Maid: Who's she dancing with? David?
- Charles - Butler: That's right. And he's holding her so close I don't see how the poor girl can breathe. And the way they look into each other's eyes!
- Thomas Fairchild: I don't like it.
- Margaret - Cook: Oh, Tom! You ought to be happy for her. This is what she wanted. This is where she belongs.
- Thomas Fairchild: No it's not. And it's not where I belong. Remember the chauffeur on the Harrington estate? His daughter fell in love with the son of the house. And the first thing he knew, he was driving the family to the church, changing his uniform, and walking down the aisle to give the bride away. That's not for me. I don't like it.