I was recently reading the Filmmaker Letter from Charlie Kaufman (via CartoonBrew) and discovered the poem he relates his affection of stop-motion animation towards:

This error is the sign of love,
the crack in the ice where the otters breathe,
the tear that saves a man from power,
the puff of smoke blown down the chimney one morning, and the
    widower sighs and gives up his loneliness,
the lines transposed in the will so the widow must scatter 
    coins from the cliff instead of ashes and she marries 
    again, for love,
the speechlessness of lovers that forces them to leave it alone 
    while it sends up its first pale shoot like an onion 
    sprouting in the pantry,
this error is the sign of love.

      - Lewis Hyde


It's a lovely summary of the appeal of stop-motion and resonates with my own feelings.