My films are circus shows, and I'm glad of it. I never put on two elephant acts together. After the elephant, the juggler, and after the juggler, the bears. I even allow a sort of intermission toward the sixth reel, because by then people's attention is flagging. At the seventh reel I take them in hand again, and try to end with a flourish ... I swear I'm not joking; I think of the circus while working. I'd like to see people hiss and boo the unsuccessful sequences and clap those they liked. And since in order to see my films people have to shut themselves up in the dark, I never fail, toward the end of the film, to take them out into the countryside, beside the sea, or in the snow, so they'll forgive me ... I think constantly of the public.
-- François Truffaut, quoted in François Truffaut by C.G. Crisp
