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Hugo Cabret: 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.
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Isabelle: This might be an adventure, and I've never had one before - outside of books, at least.
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Isabelle: We could get into trouble.
Hugo Cabret: That's how you know it's an adventure.
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Mama Jeanne: Georges, you've tried to forget the past for so long, but it has caused you nothing but unhappiness. Maybe it's time you tried to remember.
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Lisette: Don't forget to smile.
Station Inspector: Which one? I've mastered three!
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Georges Méliès: If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from, you look around... this is where they're made.
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Isabelle: [watching A Trip to the Moon] It's in color!
Mama Jeanne: Of course it is, we tinted them. We painted them by hand, frame by frame.
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Hugo Cabret: I'm sorry, it's broken.
Georges Méliès: No it's not. It worked perfectly!
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Isabelle: I think we should be very... clandestine!
Hugo Cabret: [not knowing what "clandestine" means] Um, okay...
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Station Inspector: [to his dog while in the bath] If he is deceased, then who has been winding the clocks?
[cut to reveal that the Inspector and the dog are in the bath together]
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Georges Méliès: My friends, I address you all tonight as you truly are; wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, magicians... Come and dream with me.
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Isabelle: 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..."
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Hugo Cabret: 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.
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Georges Méliès: 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.
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Hugo Cabret: I've got to go!
Station Inspector: You'll go nowhere until your parents are found.
Hugo Cabret: I don't have any!
Station Inspector: Then it's straight to the orphanage with you! You'll learn a thing or two there. I certainly did. How to follow orders, how to keep to yourself. How to survive without a family, because you don't need one! You don't need a family!
[as Gustav makes a call to the orphanage, Hugo breaks out of the cell and escapes]
-
Isabelle: [last lines; at the part Isabelle smiles as she watches Hugo doing magic tricks, she sits and starts writing in her notebook]
[voice over]
Isabelle: 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.
[Screen leads up to where we can see the automaton sitting at a desk, perfectly fixed. The screen fades to black]
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Isabelle: [wonders if she dares to ask the question] Where do you live?
Hugo Cabret: [Hugo looks at her for a minute, then turns and points to the giant clock at the train station across the bridge] There.
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Hugo Cabret: [Angry and disappointed that the automaton hasn't written anything of sense] What an idiot! Thinking I could fix it!
Isabelle: Hugo...
[Hugo looses his composure and begins smashing various items in the room]
Hugo Cabret: It's broken! It's always been broken!
[Sits in chair, covers his face and begins to cry]
Isabelle: Hugo, it doesn't have to be like this. You can fix it.
Hugo Cabret: [crying] You don't... you don't understand. I thought... I thought if I could fix it... then I wouldn't be so alone.
[Hugo's sobs fill the room. Suddenly, the machine begins to draw again]
Isabelle: Hugo, Hugo look! It... it's not done!
[they watch as the automaton begins to draw a picture]
Hugo Cabret: [voice breaking] It's not writing! It... it's drawing!
[they see it is a scene from the movie "A Trip to the Moon."]
Hugo Cabret: That's the movie my Father saw!
[the automaton signs Georges Méliès'name]
Isabelle: [amazed] Georges Méliès. That's Papa Georges name. Why would your Father's machine sign Papa Georges' name?
Hugo Cabret: I don't know.
[picks up drawing and looks at robot]
Hugo Cabret: Thank you.
[turns to Isabelle]
Hugo Cabret: It was a message from my Father. And now I have to figure it out.
-
Georges Méliès: I know you're there.
[turns around]
Georges Méliès: What's your name, boy'?
Hugo Cabret: Hugo. Hugo Cabret.
Georges Méliès: Stay away from me, Hugo Cabret.
-
Hugo Cabret: Give me back my notebook.
Georges Méliès: I'm going home to burn your notebook.
-
Isabelle: Who are you?
Hugo Cabret: Your grandfather stole my notebook. I've got to get it back before he burns it.
Isabelle: Papa Georges isn't my grandfather. And he isn't a thief. You're the thief. You're nothing but a - a reprobate.
-
Hugo's Father: A keyhole in the shape of a heart. Unfortunately, we don't have the key.
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Uncle Claude: There was a fire. Your father's dead. Pack your things, quickly. You're coming with me. Quick!
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Isabelle: There's nothing wrong with crying. Sydney Carton cries. And Heathcliff, too. In books, they're crying all the time.
-
Isabelle: Come on.
Hugo Cabret: Where are we going?
Isabelle: Only to the most wonderful place on earth. It's Neverland and Oz and Treasure Island all wrapped into one.
-
Isabelle: I think I'm halfway in love with David Copperfield.
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Isabelle: Don't you like books?
Hugo Cabret: No. No, I do. My father and I used to read Jules Verne together.
-
[repeated line]
Georges Méliès: Go away.
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Station Inspector: Be quiet! Keep - Stop your sniffling, you little urchin - with your filthy little mitts.
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Policeman: Do you think it's mine?
Station Inspector: What?
Policeman: I don't know what to do. She's having a baby, you know.
Station Inspector: Sure it's yours?
Policeman: Well, who else's could it be?
Station Inspector: Of course it's yours. When's the last time you had relations with her? Any time in the last year?
Policeman: No, I don't think so.
Station Inspector: Very suspicious, then.
-
Hugo Cabret: Robin Hood. I saw this movie. With Douglas Fairbanks. Did you see that?
Isabelle: I've never seen a movie.
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Hugo Cabret: Isabelle... do you want to have an adventure?
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Hugo Cabret: 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.
Isabelle: Really?
Hugo Cabret: He said it was like seeing his dreams in the middle of the day. The movies were our special place.
-
Station Inspector: Seems Maximilian doesn't like the cut of your jib, little man. He is disturbed by your physiognomy. He is upset by your visage. Why would he not like your face?
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Station Inspector: That's enough poetry for today.
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Station Inspector: I love poetry, just - not in the station. We're here to either get on trains or get off them. Or, work in different shops. Is that clear?
Isabelle: Yes, sir.
Station Inspector: Watch your step.
-
Isabelle: Now, since I just saved your life, how about letting me see your covert lair?
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Isabelle: This is marvelous. I feel just like Jean Valjean.
-
Isabelle: Oh, this is superlative!
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Mama Jeanne: What's going on, Isabelle?
Isabelle: Oh, well, it's a terribly long story filled with circumlocutions.
-
Isabelle: Thank you - for the movie today. It - it was a gift.
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Station Inspector: Demitasse, like everything else, must happen at the opportune moment. If we only knew when that moment was.
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Station Inspector: Those are lovely posies, those.
Lisette: Thank you. Yes, they're from Gourdon. They come in on the overnight train, so they're very fresh.
Station Inspector: Ah, Gourdon. Splendid country, that. Robust. The weather - the cows and such mooing. Perfectly formed udders. Are they - are they - are they smelly?
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Monsieur Labisse: The Film Academy library. You'll find all you need to know about movies there. Second level, fourth row, section three, and, yes, top shelf. "The Invention of Dreams" by Ren Tabard. The Story of the First Movies.
Hugo Cabret: [Hugo and Isabelle find the book and start to read] "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."
Isabelle: "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."
Hugo Cabret: "No one had ever seen anything like it before."
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Isabelle: [reading from "The Invention of Dreams"] "The filmmaker Georges Méliès was one of the first to realize that - films had the power - to capture dreams."
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Isabelle: Professor Tabard, would you - perhaps - like to meet him?
Rene Tabard: Oh - but you see, I have met him. My brother worked as a carpenter building sets for Méliès. One day he took me to visit the studio. It was like - something out of a dream. The whole building was made of glass. In reality, this was to let in all the sunlight necessary for filming, but to my eyes, it was nothing short of - an enchanted castle. A palace made of glass.
-
Station Inspector: You bloated buffoon!
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Hugo Cabret: Everything has a purpose, even machines. Clocks tell the time and trains take you places. They do what they're meant to do.
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Isabelle: I wonder what my purpose is? I don't know.
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Mama Jeanne: He's so fragile now. It only hurts him to remember the past.
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Isabelle: You were an actress, a real cinema actress! It's impossibly romantic, Mama.
Mama Jeanne: It wasn't like that. We weren't movie stars like they have today. But we did have fun.
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Georges Méliès: I would recognize the sound of a movie projector anywhere.
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Rene Tabard: Yes, you can start with the thaumatrope, the zoetrope, the praxinoscope.
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Hugo Cabret: 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!
Hugo Quotes
Extended Reading
