Top 56 Brian Selznick Quotes
#1. 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.
Brian Selznick
#2. 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.
Brian Selznick
#4. If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from when you go to sleep at night, just look around. This is where they are made.
Brian Selznick
#5. In that moment, the machinery of the world lined up. Somewhere a clock struck midnight, and Hugo's future seemed to fall perfectly into place.
Brian Selznick
#6. Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders.
Brian Selznick
#7. What interests me about clocks is that everything is hand-made, and yet to the person looking at the clock, something magical is happening that cannot be explained unless you are the clockmaker.
Brian Selznick
#8. I've always loved children's books - it's not that I didn't like them, I just didn't think I wanted to do that. But then I suddenly realized I did ...
Brian Selznick
#9. Having an eye patch actually makes it easier to look through a camera - I don't have to close one eye like everyone else.
Brian Selznick
#10. 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.
Brian Selznick
#11. Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you'd be able to find whatever you were looking for.
Brian Selznick
#12. I think the most important thing you can do is to keep drawing no matter what. And to not be afraid of drawing whatever interests you. If there is something that you want to draw, to make, then I think you should pursue it and not let anybody tell you that you can't do it.
Brian Selznick
#13. I've always loved the wild rumpus in 'Where the Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak, because the words disappear, the pictures take up the whole page, and we move forward in the story by turning the pages.
Brian Selznick
#14. I definitely think my work comes from things that I liked as a kid, and things I still like now. Monsters and magic and museums and movies, a lot of things that start with 'M' for some reason.
Brian Selznick
#15. Like a mermaid rising from an ocean of paper, the girl emerged across the room.
Brian Selznick
#16. She walked to the rear door and took out a bobby pin from her pocket. Hugo watched as she fiddled with the pin inside the lock until it clicked and the door opened. "How did you learn to do that?" asked Hugo. "Books," answered Isabelle.
Brian Selznick
#17. For most of my career I illustrated books for other people.
Brian Selznick
#19. Sometimes, I have themes that interest me or that touch on larger issues but, really, I'm just trying to figure out the plot, or how the characters work. I'm trying to make the best story I possibly can.
Brian Selznick
#20. Hugo learned that Prometheus had created humankind out of mud, and then stolen fire from the gods as a gift for the people he had made, so they could survive. So Prometheus was a thief.
Brian Selznick
#21. I think from an early age I was aware of how a camera can tell a story, how a movie camera can affect how the narrative is told.
Brian Selznick
#22. 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.
Brian Selznick
#23. Albert shrugged, but Joseph could sense a world of things his uncle wasn't saying.
Brian Selznick
#24. My house had suddenly turned into a hospital ward.
Brian Selznick
#25. I majored in illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, although I never had any intention of being an illustrator and didn't take any classes in illustration there. It was just that the illustration degree had no requirements.
Brian Selznick
#26. I guess I see a part of myself in everyone I write about. I tend to write about kids who are obsessed with something, and even though I have never been good with machines the way Hugo is, I did love miniature things when I was a kid.
Brian Selznick
#27. But I'm a fairly mechanical worker - I tend not to think about themes so much as plot. I want to get the feeling right. If it's moving through tunnels, I ask myself, what is it like to move through tunnels?
Brian Selznick
#29. I knew I had to break up with Ann Rosenberg after she chose a teal dress for the prom. I had never heard of teal. Also, I was gay.
Brian Selznick
#30. Time is supposed to move forwards.'
'What if I don't like what happens?'
'Then...you change it.
Brian Selznick
#32. Hugo headed off toward the door to leave, but the bookstore was warm and quiet, and the teetering piles of books fascinated him.
Brian Selznick
#33. I think everything belongs in a certain place, for kids who feel they don't belong anywhere. A museum is an institution like a library where everything has a place, everything belongs.
Brian Selznick
#34. 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.
Brian Selznick
#35. Amber starts off as sap from a tree," Joseph said in the dark. "And sometimes insects get caught in it, and over millions of years the amber turns into a gemstone, but it traps the insect inside."
"Oh."
"A photograph is sort of like that, don't you think?
Brian Selznick
#36. Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do ... Maybe it's the same with people," Hugo continued. "If you lose your purpose ... it's like your broken.
Brian Selznick
#37. You can make up your own story when you look at a photo.
Brian Selznick
#38. A friend suggested that I get a job at a children's book store so I could meet kids and read books, and that turned out to be the single best bit of advice I've ever gotten.
Brian Selznick
#39. Even if all the clocks in the station break down, thought Hugo, time won't stop. Not even if you really want it to.
Like now.
Brian Selznick
#40. I love illustrating for other writers because I am given stories I never would have thought of, and my work as an illustrator is always in support of the story.
Brian Selznick
#41. I think I always knew that I would do something with art because it was the one thing that I knew I was really good at.
Brian Selznick
#42. Then you know Prometheus was rescued in the end. His chains were broken, and he was finally set free." The old man squinted one of his eyes and added, "How about that?
Brian Selznick
#43. I address you all tonight for who you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.
Brian Selznick
#44. Fairy tales only happen in movies.
-George Melies
from The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Brian Selznick
#45. I love being an illustrator because I get to read really great stories, work with amazing people, travel and see places I never would've seen. And I get to draw all the time.
Brian Selznick
#46. But there are other stories waiting to be told, and they will be lost one day, too. Whatever the case, it's all beneath your feet, right now.
Brian Selznick
#47. Well, everything surprises me about the writing process because illustrating comes much more naturally to me than writing does.
Brian Selznick
#48. I hope the snow covers everything so all the footsteps are silenced, and the whole city can be at peace.
Brian Selznick
#49. It looks like the whole city is made out of stars.
Brian Selznick
#50. I can draw pencil lines to show something is moving, but if I'm writing, I struggle with how to write it. The boy ran down the hallway? The boy ran quickly down the hallway? The boy ran down the marble hallway? I agonize over the words. So my editor works very hard. I'm lucky to have her.
Brian Selznick
#51. The orphan in children's literature allows the child protagonist to move the story forward themselves. I think that, however happy a family, every intelligent child thinks: 'How did I come to be born to these parents?' - it is about finding your place in the world.
Brian Selznick
#52. A lot of times, people complain about how books and stories change when they're translated to the screen. But I think sometimes people forget that a lot of changes have to be made because we're not in a book when we're watching a movie.
Brian Selznick
#53. What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go into your own cabinet?
Brian Selznick
#55. 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.
Brian Selznick
#56. I've been taking art lessons since I was little, and I've always drawn. I think in pictures.
Brian Selznick
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