99 Quotes by Brian Selznick

"Albert shrugged, but Joseph could sense a world of things his uncle wasn’t saying."

"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."

"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."

"A museum is an institution like a library where everything has a place, everything belongs."

"Maybe the play wasn’t about miracles. No, maybe it was about the passage of time, and the need for patience, and the ability to forgive. Maybe Shakespeare was saying that even in a world where miracles can happen, there’s still going to be pain, and loss, and regret. Because sometimes people die and you can’t bring them back. That’s what life is Joseph realized, miracles and sadness, side by side."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"Maybe time is like that insect,” Blink said, “trapped beneath the crystal of your watch."

"What would it be like to pick and choose the objects and stories that would go into your own cabinet?"