John Logan

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.

The surgeon said his brain was filled with tumors. A myriad of tumors. That's the word he used, "myriad". I think Tom would like that. There's nothing they can do, you see. The doctor said it was a matter of weeks. Might regain consciousness, most likely not.

No, you stay with Nancy. You stay with Nancy. You should, you know, prepare her. She always loved Tom the most. The plural of "myriad" is "myriads", by the way.

God help anyone who loves you, Tom. Because for all your talk and all your millions of beautiful words, you haven't the slightest idea of what it means to be alive. To look into another person's eyes and ache for him. I hope someday you will. And then maybe all your words will be worth five of Scott's.

Imagine you're a reader. You're wandering through a bookstore and lots of books, and you see a book titled "Trimalchio in West Egg" and you see one titled The "Great Gatsby."Which are you going to pick up?

That's why Scott changed his original title. He knew it needed a bit more meat.

Suicide seems a bit extreme and killing Tom won't help much, so I suppose that leaves me.

Some books are supposed to be long, you know! Thank god Tolstoy never met you. We'd have that great novel "War and Nothing".

Who better to talk to? The man who created something immortal. More and more I trouble myself with that. "The legacy." Will anyone care about Thomas Wolfe in 100 years? Ten years? When I was young, I asked myself that question every day.

Dear Max, I've got a hunch, and I wanted to write these words to you. I've made a long voyage and been to a strange country, and I've seen the dark man very close. And I don't think I was too much afraid of him. But I want most desperately to live. I want to see you again. For there is such an impossible anguish and regret for all I can never say to you, for all the work I have to do. I feel as if a great window has been opened on life. And if I come through this, I hope to God I am a better man and can live up to you. But most of all, I wanted to tell you, no matter what happens, I shall always feel about you the way I did that November day when you met me at the boat and we went on top of the building and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life were below. Yours always, Tom.

I'm sorry I'm not decent enough for your fine dinner parties and your fine friends, but before you drag me out to the wood shed, I think you ought to look at who is giving the lesson. Am I supposed to grow up like you?

To hell with Flaubert and Henry James.

Well, I'm sorry I'm not decent enough for your fine dinner parties and your fine friends. But before you drag me out to the woodshed, I think you ought to look at who's giving the lesson. Am I supposed to grow up like you?

The last time I saw my father, I was standing as a train window, when I went north to college. He just got smaller and smaller as we pulled away, until I couldn't see him anymore. That train carried me to my life; beyond the hills and over the rivers. And always the rivers run. Sometimes they flow away from my father, and sometimes they flow back to his door. I have to prove I can do it by myself.

Scott! I know it was a while ago but I'm sorry. I was a damn brute. I wouldn't blame you for slamming the door in my face. You don't know how sorry I am for talking to you and Zelda like that. Please, say you forgive me.