Trevor Noah quotes

Trevor Noah is a South African comedian, television host, and political commentator, widely recognized for his sharp wit and engaging storytelling. His work as the host of "The Daily Show" brought international acclaim and highlighted global perspectives on current events. He continues to influence the world of comedy and media through his insightful humor and commentary. Here are 39 of his quotes:

In society, we do horrible things to one another because we don't see the person it affects. We don't see their face. We don't see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable. We live in a world where we don't see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don't live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another's pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.

Trevor Noah

In the hood, even if you're not a hardcore criminal, crime is in your life in some way or another. There are degrees of it. It's everyone from the mom buying some food that fell off the back of a truck to feed her family, all the way up to the gangs selling military-grade weapons and hardware. The hood made me realize that crime succeeds because crime does the one thing the government doesn't do: crime cares. Crime is grassroots. Crime looks for the young kids who need support and a lifting hand. Crime offers internship programs and summer jobs and opportunities for advancement. Crime gets involved in the community. Crime doesn't discriminate.

Trevor Noah

As the outsider, you can retreat into a shell, be anonymous, be invisible. Or you can go the other way. You protect yourself by opening up. You don't ask to be accepted for everything you are, just the one part of yourself that you're willing to share. For me it was humor. I learned that even though I didn't belong to one group, I could be a part of of any group that was laughing.

Trevor Noah

In any society built on institutionalized racism, race-mixing doesn't merely challenge the system as unjust, it reveals the system as unsustainable and incoherent. Race-mixing proves that races can mix - and in a lot of cases, want to mix. Because a mixed person embodies that rebuke to the logic of the system, race-mixing becomes a crime worse than treason.

Trevor Noah

That's what I always loved about comedy, it is a way for us to just, you know, to numb the pain, to process what we're going through.

Trevor Noah

Of course Ben Carson advisors can't make him smart, you can't change its brain. That's a job for a neurosurgeon. It's the same when your barber has a #### haircut.

Trevor Noah

[...] Donald Trump sees the presidency the same way he sees one of his companies: its whole purpose is to serve him and only him. [...] the whole pupose of the Justice Department, which he thinks is not to uphold law. No, no, no, it's to do the president's bidding. The same way he probably thinks the purpose of the Energy Department is to charge his iPhone. [...] The only thing more shocking than his autocratic view of power is his willingness to talk so openly about it. In a strange way Donald Trump is both the most honest and dishonest president of all time. I figured it out, people. He's not cinnamon Hitler, he's Abraham Nixon.

Trevor Noah

Hey, son, what the hell is with your haircut? Did you see a paintbrush and say "I want that dude's look!"

Trevor Noah

Ben Carson: for people who like Donald Trump's ideas, but hate his charm and charisma. Ben Carson is like the drug free cocaine for people who don't wanna get high but just like snorting white powder.

Trevor Noah

That's how a police state works - everyone thinks everyone else is the police.

Trevor Noah

I spend most of my day screaming and then over time I get tired and then when I'm tired, I start thinking of the jokes.

Trevor Noah

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.

Trevor Noah

People don't want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.

Trevor Noah

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.

Trevor Noah

I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don't really need a distinction between them. If I'm doing something on stage and it evokes an emotion, then I might show that emotion, but I also don't believe in being a preacher. If you have a point, that's a bonus. But the funny has to come first, otherwise you shouldn't call yourself a comedian.

Trevor Noah

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?

Trevor Noah

In life only three things are certain: death, Adobe updates and taxes.

Trevor Noah

ISIS without guns is just basically a blog.

Trevor Noah

He really is a TV president. [...] He loves the performance of doing things. But a lot of the time, nothing's actually being done. Essentially, Donald Trump wants to be president, but he doesn't want to do president.

Trevor Noah

I think the most important thing is to instantly give them a sense of who you are and how you feel in that moment. If a speaker is nervous and tells the audience that, people immediately contextualize it and respond accordingly. If a performer is in a good mood or feeling wild and crazy and says so, I've found, the crowd will be good at matching that energy. So for me, the rapport is built by a genuineness conveyed as quickly as possible.

Trevor Noah

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.'

Trevor Noah

Donald Trump didn't invent racism. Trump didn't invent islamophobia. And he didn't invent violence. All he did was put his name on them like he does with everything else.

Trevor Noah