Quotessence
Home / Authors / Brian Selznick Biography
Brian Selznick

Brian Selznick Biography

Illustrator

Related Quotes

“Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason?" he asked Isabelle. "They are built to make you laugh, like the mouse here, or to tell the time, like clocks, or to fill you with wonder like the automaton. Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was made to do." Isabelle picked up the mouse, wound it again, and set it down. "Maybe it's the same with people," Hugo continued. "If you lose your purpose...it's like you're broken.”

PeoplePurposeBrokenMachinesHugo Cabret
Book:The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Create image

“Sometimes I come up here at night, even when I'm not fixing the clocks, just to look at the city. I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is one big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”

LoveLifeReasonFriendshipFamilyBooksMachinesSelf DiscoveryMeaning
Book:The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Create image

“Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults. That's what happened to me. Once upon a time, I was a boy named Hugo Cabret, and I desperately believed that a broken automaton would save my life. Now that my cocoon has fallen away and I have emerged as a magician named Professor Alcofrisbas, I can look back and see that I was right. The automaton my father discovered did save me. But now I have built a new automaton. I spent countless hours designing it. I made every gear myself, carefully cut every brass disk, and fashioned every bt of machinery with my own hands. When you wind it up, it can do something I'm sure no other automaton in the world can do. It can tel you the incredible story of Georges Melies, his wife, their goddaughter, and a beloved clock maker whose son grew up to be a magician. The complicated machinery inside my automaton can produce one-hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and it can wrote, letter, by letter, an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine words. These words. THE END”

ChildrenTimeWorkGrowing UpWordsMachineryPicturesClocksAutomatonHugo Cabret
Book:The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Create image

“As I look out at all of you gathered here, I want to say that I don't see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don't see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.”

WantLooksRoomsDressesStoresHatsAddressesTonightDreamerDiamondTravelerMagicianWizardsBankersSilkHousewifeMermaidAdventurerClerksTop Hats
Book:The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Create image

“The idea of going to the movies made Hugo remember something Father had once told him about going to the movies when he was just a boy, when the movies were new. Hugo's father had stepped into a dark room, and on a white screen he had seen a rocket fly right into the eye of the man in the moon. Father said he had never experienced anything like it. It had been like seeing his dreams in the middle of the day.”

MenMadeSaidIdeasDreamEyeRememberFatherDarkWhiteRoomsBoysSeeingMiddleMoonScreensRocketsDark RoomRemember SomethingMan In The Moon
Book:The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Create image

“Ben remembered reading about curators in "Wonderstruck", and thought about what id meant to curate your own life, as his dad had done here. What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go in your own cabinet? How would Ben curate his own life? And then, thinking about his museum box, and his house, and his books, and the secret room, he realized he'd already begun doing it. Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders.”

ThinkingBookDoneStoriesReadingHouseRoomsSecretWonderObjectsDadPicksBoxesRememberedMuseumsCabinetsCurator
Author:Brian Selznick
Create image