“My house had suddenly turned into a hospital ward.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I knew I had to break up with Ann Rosenberg after she chose a teal dress for the prom. I had never heard of teal. Also, I was gay.”

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

“The world is like a machine, there is no extra parts so your are meant to do something, even if you are a little rusted.”

“Even if all the clocks in the station break down, thought Hugo, time won't stop. Not even if you really want it to.Like now.”