Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (One World Essentials)

by Trevor Noah

To this day you can leave me alone for hours and I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I have to remember to be with people.

As a nation, we recognized the power of women, but in the home they were expected to submit and obey.

I think God made humans shit in the way we do because it brings us back down to earth and gives us humility.

Growing up the way I did, I learned how easy it is for white people to get comfortable with a system that awards them all the perks. I

that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.

People are getting hurt, and just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Whatever love they had was lost in the constant fighting that went on between them.

“the black tax.” Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use

your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero.

“Learn from your past and be better because of your past,” she would say, “but don’t cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don’t hold on to it. Don’t be bitter.”

Sucking marrow out of bones is a skill poor people learn early.

So many black people had internalized the logic of apartheid and made it their own.

Racism is not logical.

Catholic school is not the place to be creative and independent.

And in all of that time I’ve yet to find a place where black people like cats.

You do not own the thing that you love.

When an African dad buys his kid a present, the last thing he’s going to do is give some fat white man credit for

Relationships are built in the silences.

One of the most sinister things about apartheid was that it taught colored people that it was black people who were holding them back.

Being more of a man doesn’t mean your woman has to be less than you.”

Jewish people don’t flee. They’re done fleeing. They’ve already fled.

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.

It’s easy to be judgmental about crime when you live in a world wealthy enough to be removed from it.

Hustling is to work what surfing the Internet is to reading.

It’s maximal effort put into minimal gain. It’s a hamster wheel.

Comfort provides a floor but also a ceiling.

Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable.

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.

racism exists, and you have to pick a side. You can say that you don’t pick sides, but eventually life will force you to pick a side.

When you love someone you create a new world for them.

We have people who cannot police themselves, so they want to police everyone else around them.”