38 quotes
You don't go to South Africa to escape racism. That's where you go to stock up. Are you kidding me, that's the one thing that reminds me of home. The racism out here.
Trevor Noah : Son of Patricia (2018)
Boris Johnson looks like if Donald Trump drank.
People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)
Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. It’s a strange feeling. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either hate them or love them, but that’s not how people are.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)
Welcome to the 2016 presidential election. If you're on TV and you say something that offends the nation, you're gonna lose your job. But don't worry, you can still run for president.
You know what the problem in America is? It's that white people call the police like they're asking for the manager. It's like, "this is unacceptable, I demand to see someone who might shoot you".
At this point, it's not even a high-level controversy. This isn't House of Cards. Like, this isn't even Veep. It wouldn't even qualify for Blue's Clues.
The part where we say who's good and who's bad and who started-- let's-- let's step away from that and instead ask a different question: Instead, let's look at who's dead and who's alive this week.
The end of apartheid was a gradual thing. Concessions were made here and there, some laws were repealed, others simply weren’t enforced.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)
Laughter is strange in that if we think of all the emotions that we're able to express or feel, one of the things about laughter that's particularly interesting to me is it's one of the few emotions that robs your pain of its power.
If you’re Native American and you pray to the wolves, you’re a savage. If you’re African and you pray to your ancestors, you’re a primitive. But when white people pray to a guy who turns water into wine, well, that’s just common sense.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)
I felt like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it was, like, the weirdest thing ever. I just came for a tour, I just wanted some of the Wonka bars and then the next thing, I'm, like, managing the Oompa Loompas. I'm like "Aaah! I don't know how this works, this is crazy!"
The more time I spent in jail, the more I realized that the law isn’t rational at all. It’s a lottery. What color is your skin? How much money do you have? Who’s your lawyer? Who’s the judge?
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)
The final lesson I learned at the show -- and I learned it not at the show, but because of the show and the news I was covering is -- please don't forget that the world is a friendlier place than the internet and the news will make you think?
People think, and so did I when I was young, that ADHD is, "This kid can't pay attention," when in fact what it means is, you are unable to control what you pay attention to. So generally when you have ADHD, you are paying more attention than most people, but to the wrong thing.
For any comedian, your life informs your point of view, the way you see the world. My comedy comes through the prism of race or class, because those are two worlds that collided for me growing up. And I guess that’s served me well, because those themes cross over countries and continents. We’re all still dealing with those issues today.
Growing up as a young boy in Wakanda, I would see King T’Challa flying over our village, and he would remind me of a great Xhosa phrase: Abelungu abazi ubu ndiyaxoka, which means: ‘In times like these, we are stronger when we fight together than when we try to fight apart.’
There were so many perks to being ‘white’ in a black family, I can’t even front. I was having a great time. My own family basically did what the American justice system does: I was given more lenient treatment than the black kids.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)