Brian Selznick

Artist

1966-07-14

Quotes by Brian Selznick

• The machine was so intricate, so complicated, that he almost got dizzy looking at it. Even in its sad state of disrepair, it was beautiful.

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• Standing on the roof at night, beside the golden shipI look across the city and I dream a wild trip.The waves are high, the wind is strong, the moon is white and full.I smell the salt upon the sea, a strong magnetic pull.I shout into the endless dark, awaiting the reply:'Away! Away' It says: 'Away! Now spread your wings and fly.

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• 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.

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• He wished he was with his mom in her library, where everything was safe and numbered and organized by the Dewey decimal system. Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you'd be able to find whatever you were looking for, like the meaning of your dream, or your dad.

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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 a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.

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• 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.

  Read quote

• He wished he was with his mom in her library, where everything was safe and numbered and organized by the Dewey decimal system. Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you'd be able to find whatever you were looking for, like the meaning of your dream, or your dad.

  Read quote

• 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

  Read quote

• 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 a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.

  Read quote

• 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.

  Read quote

• Standing on the roof at night, beside the golden shipI look across the city and I dream a wild trip.The waves are high, the wind is strong, the moon is white and full.I smell the salt upon the sea, a strong magnetic pull.I shout into the endless dark, awaiting the reply:'Away! Away' It says: 'Away! Now spread your wings and fly.

  Read quote

• The machine was so intricate, so complicated, that he almost got dizzy looking at it. Even in its sad state of disrepair, it was beautiful.

  Read quote

• Since I spend such a long time making each book, I only choose books that I'm really interested in and that I really love.

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• Once I'm given an idea for a story I have a million ideas on how it should be illustrated, but I don't have a big shoebox full of unfinished ideas.

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• I think when I'm drawing, I'm seeing what's happening on the page almost as if it were unfolding like a movie in my head.

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• Well, everything surprises me about the writing process because illustrating comes much more naturally to me than writing does.

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