Maybe we are all cabinets of wonders.

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 you're broken.

My house had suddenly turned into a hospital ward.

The idea of going to the movies made Hugo remember something Father had once told him about going to the movies when he was just a boy, when the movies were new. Hugo's father had stepped into a dark room, and on a white screen he had seen a rocket fly right into the eye of the man in the moon. Father said he had never experienced anything like it. It had been like seeing his dreams in the middle of the day.

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?

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.

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.