Automaton Quote by Brian Selznick
““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””
About This Quote
Source Book: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, 2007
The narrator reflects on how time transforms life, and how creating a complex automaton became a means to preserve and tell stories.
In simple terms: Time changes us; making things can capture history.
Use creativity to document and share personal history.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- Personal memoir
- museum exhibit
- educational workshop
- family storytelling
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- How does creating an object help you understand your past?
- What responsibilities come with preserving stories?
The automaton’s claim to uniqueness may be overstated; others may have similar devices.