Maybe we are all cabinets of wonders.

I guess I see a part of myself in everyone I write about. I tend to write about kids who are obsessed with something, and even though I have never been good with machines the way Hugo is, I did love miniature things when I was a kid.

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.

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.

I think I always knew that I would do something with art because it was the one thing that I knew I was really good at.

Like a mermaid rising from an ocean of paper, the girl emerged across the room.

You can make up your own story when you look at a photo.