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21 " 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. "
― Trevor Noah , Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
22 " Because 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. "
― Trevor Noah
23 " 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. "
24 " My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do. When I look back I realize she raised me like a white kid - not white culturally, but in the sense of believing that the world was my oyster, that I should speak up for myself, that my ideas and thoughts and decisions mattered. "
25 " People say all the time that they’d do anything for the people they love. But would you really? Would you do anything? Would you give everything? I don’t know that a child knows that kind of selfless love. A mother, yes. A mother will clutch her children and jump from a moving car to keep them from harm. She will do it without thinking. But I don’t think the child knows how to do that, not instinctively. It’s something the child has to learn. "
26 " Don't fight the system, mock the system "
27 " Love is a creative act. When you love someone you create a new world for them. My mother did that for me, and with the progress I made and the things I learned, I came back and created a new world and a new understanding for her. "
28 " It's a powerful experience, shitting. There's something magical about it, profound even. I think God made humans shit in the way we do because it brings us back down to earth and gives us humility. I don't care who you are, we all shit the same. Beyonce shits. The pope shits. The Queen of England shits. When we shit we forget our airs and our graces, we forget how famous or how rich we are. All of that goes away. You are never more yourself than when you're taking a shit. You have that moment where you realize, 'This is me. This is who I am. "
29 " —a knowledgeable man is a free man, or at least a man who longs for freedom. "
30 " I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don't really need a distinction between them. "
31 " My grandmother always told me that she loved my prayers. She believed my prayers were more powerful, because I prayed in English. Everyone knows that Jesus, who's white, speaks English. The Bible is in English. Yes, the Bible was not written in English, but the Bible came to South Africa in English so to us it's English. Which made my prayers the best prayers because English prayers get answered first. How do we know this? Look at white people. Clearly they're getting through to the right person. Add to that Matthew 19:14. "Suffer little children to come unto me," Jesus said, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." So if a child is praying in English? To White Jesus? That's a powerful combination right there. "
32 " When he said that, my body just let go. I remember the exact traffic light I was at. For a moment there was a complete vacuum of sound and then I cried tears like I had never cried before. I collapsed in heaving sobs and moans. I cried as if every other thing I'd cried for in my life had been a waste of crying. I cried so hard that if my present crying seld could go back in time and see my other crying selves, it would slap them and say, "That's shit's not worth crying for." My cry was not a cry of sadness. It was not catharsis. It wasn't me feeling sad for myself. It was an expression of raw pain that came from an inability of my body to express that pain in any other way, shape or form. She was my mom. She was my teammate. It has always been me and her torgether, me and her against the world. When Andrew said, "shot her in the head," I broke in two. "
33 " When he said that, my body just let go. I remember the exact traffic light I was at. For a moment there was a complete vacuum of sound and then I cried tears like I had never cried before. I collapsed in heaving sobs and moans. I cried as if every other thing I'd cried for in my life had been a waste of crying. I cried so hard that if my present self could go back in time and see my other crying selves, it would slap them and say that shit's not crying for." My cry was not a cry of sadness. It was not catharsis. It wasn't me feeling sorry for myself. It was an expression of raw pain that came from an inability of my body to express that pain in any other way, shape, or form. She was my mom. She was my teammate. It had always been me and her together, me and her against the world. When Andrew said, "shot her in the head," I broke in two. "
― Trevor Noah , It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
34 " As soon as things start going well for you in the hood, it's time to go. Because the hood will drag you back in. It will find a way. There will be a guy who steals a thing and puts it in your car and the cops find it - something. You can't stay. You think you can. You'll start doing better and you'll bring your hood friends out to a nice club, and the next thing you know somebody starts a fight and one of your friends pulls a gun and somebody's getting shot and you're left standing around going, 'What just happened?'The hood happened. "
35 " When I was twenty-four years old, one day out of the blue my mother said to me, “You need to find your father.” “Why?” I asked. At that point I hadn’t seen him in over ten years and didn’t think I’d ever see him again. “Because he’s a piece of you,” she said, “and if you don’t find him you won’t find yourself.” “I don’t need him for that,” I said. “I know who I am.” “It’s not about knowing who you are. It’s about him knowing who you are, and you knowing who he is. Too many men grow up without their fathers, so they spend their lives with a false impression of who their father is and what a father should be. You need to find your father. You need to show him what you’ve become. You need to finish that story. "
36 " The hood was strangely comforting, but comfort can be dangerous. Comfort provides a floor but also a ceiling. "
37 " You cannot blame anyone else for What you do. You cannot blame your past for who you are. You are responsible for you. You make your own choices. "
38 " 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. "
39 " You didn’t know your dog was deaf?” “No, we thought it was stupid. "
40 " For the million people who lied in Soweto, there were no stores, no bars, no restaurants. There were no paved roads, minimal electricity, inadequate sewerage. But when you put one million people together in one place, they find a way to make life for themselves. "