- François Truffaut: I had never thought that I was revolutionizing cinema or was unlike earlier film-makers. I always thought cinema was great, but lacked sincerity and we ought to do it better. Malraux said "A masterpiece is not a bad film improved," but I thought good films were bad films improved.
- Narrator: "In troubled periods," writes François Truffaut, "the artist hesitates; he is tempted to abandon his art and to make his art subservient to an idea. Through film he becomes a propagandist. When this thought occurs to me I think of Matisse. He lived through three wars untouched. He was too young for 1870, too old for the war of 1914, a patriarch in 1940. He died in 1954 between the wars in Indochina and Algeria, having completed his life's work, his fish, women, flowers, landscapes framed by windows. The wars were trivial events in his life. The thousands of canvases were the serious events. Art for Art's Sake? No. Art for beauty, art for others, art that consoles."