Brian Selznick

If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from, you look around… this is where they're made.

It's all gone now. Everything I ever made. Nothing but ashes and fading strips of celluloid. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.

My friends, I address you all tonight as you truly are; wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, magicians… Come and dream with me.

I would recognize the sound of a movie projector anywhere.

Magic tricks and illusion became my speciality. The world of imagination. My beautiful wife was my muse, my star, and we couldn't have been happier. We thought it would never end. How could it?

But then the war came. And youth and hope were at an end. The world had no time for magic tricks and movie shows. The returning soldiers, having seen so much of reality, were bored by my films. Tastes had changed, but I had not changed with them. No one wanted my movies anymore. Eventually I... I couldn't pay the actors... or keep the business running, and... and so my enchanted castle fell to ruin. Everything was lost.

One night, in bitter despair, I... I burned all my old sets and costumes. I was forced to sell my movies to a company that melted them down into chemicals. These chemicals were used to make shoe heels. With the little money I had from selling my films, I bought the toy booth... and there I have remained. The only thing I couldn't bring myself to destroy was my beloved automaton. So I gave him to a museum, hoping he would find a home. But they never put him on display. And then the museum burned. It's all gone now. Everything I ever made. Nothing but ashes and fading strips of celluloid. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.

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. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken.

I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.

That's how you know it's an adventure.

My father took me to the movies all the time. He told me about the first one he ever saw. He went into a dark room, and on a white screen, he saw a rocket *fly* - into the eye of the man in the moon. - It went straight in.

He said it was like seeing his dreams in the middle of the day. The movies were our special place.

You don't understand. You have to let me go. I don't understand why my father died. Why I'm alone. This is my only chance to work. You should understand!

Your grandfather stole my notebook. I've got to get it back before he burns it.

"In 1895, one of the very first films ever shown was called, ' A Train Arrives in the Station', which had nothing more than a train coming into the station."

"No one had ever seen anything like it before."

Everything has a purpose, even machines. Clocks tell the time and trains take you places. They do what they're meant to do.

This might be an adventure, and I've never had one before - outside of books, at least.

Once upon a time, I met a boy named Hugo Cabret. He lived in a train station. Why did he live in a train station, you might well ask. That's really what this book is going to be about. And about how this singular young man searched to hard to find a secret message from his Father, and how that message lead his way, all the way home.

Thank you - for the movie today. It - it was a gift.

Christina Rossetti's her name, after the poetess. Would you like me to recite? "My heart is like a singing bird, Whose nest is in a water'd shoot, My heart is like an apple tree, Whose boughs are bent with thick-set..."

There's nothing wrong with crying. Sydney Carton cries. And Heathcliff, too. In books, they're crying all the time.

"The filmmaker Georges Méliès was one of the first to realize that - films had the power - to capture dreams."

"When the train came speeding toward the screen, the audience screamed, because they thought they were in danger of being run over. No one had ever seen anything like it before."

I wonder what my purpose is? I don't know.

I think I'm halfway in love with David Copperfield.