Brian Selznick

For most of my career I illustrated books for other people.

I think everything belongs in a certain place, for kids who feel they don't belong anywhere. A museum is an institution like a library where everything has a place, everything belongs.

What interests me about clocks is that everything is hand-made, and yet to the person looking at the clock, something magical is happening that cannot be explained unless you are the clockmaker.

A lot of people who don't write for kids think it's easy, because they think kids aren't as smart as they are, or that you have to dumb down what you would normally write for kids. But I think you have to work harder when you write for kids, to make sure every word is right, that it's there for the right reason.

I majored in illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, although I never had any intention of being an illustrator and didn't take any classes in illustration there. It was just that the illustration degree had no requirements.

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.

Since I spend such a long time making each book, I only choose books that I'm really interested in and that I really love.

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 love being an illustrator because I get to read really great stories, work with amazing people, travel and see places I never would've seen. And I get to draw all the time.

I've been taking art lessons since I was little, and I've always drawn. I think in pictures.

I can draw pencil lines to show something is moving, but if I'm writing, I struggle with how to write it. The boy ran down the hallway? The boy ran quickly down the hallway? The boy ran down the marble hallway? I agonize over the words. So my editor works very hard. I'm lucky to have her.

A friend suggested that I get a job at a children's book store so I could meet kids and read books, and that turned out to be the single best bit of advice I've ever gotten.