Sabrina Society and Class Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Sabrina.

Quote #1

OLIVER: 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: And exactly what have I done?

What David has done is to betray his class by daring to fall in love with a chaffeur's daughter. Oliver is a hyperbolic caricature of class snobbery; piracy, slavery, robbery—all those are forgivable. But breaking class barriers is beyond the pale.

Quote #2

SABRINA: 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."

Sabrina fancifully describes Linus' vast wealth and power. That power is fun, and also exciting and exotic, what with the tankers whooshing off to Persia. The attraction of the Cinderella story isn't just true love, but true love wrapped in incredible material comfort and high status. That's part of the attraction of Sabrina as well.

Quote #3

THOMAS: 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: Fairchild, I never realized it before, but you're a terrible snob.

THOMAS: Yes, sir.

Sabrina is about how class distinctions don't matter. It's very careful not to ever suggest that rich people are bad, or that rich people exploit or have too much power over poor people.

So it's not Linus who's the snob who think the classes should be separate; it's Thomas. The chauffeur wants everyone to stay in their place—which allows Linus to appear as the voice of enlightenment and democracy. Remember that Linus' estate in real life was the estate of one of the film's producers; Hollywood is funded by rich people. Hollywood loves rich people; it doesn't want to make them look bad.