Best Born A Crime Quotes

Trevor Noah’s memoir Born a Crime tells the story of growing up mixed-race in South Africa during and after apartheid, when his very existence was literally illegal. What makes the book so memorable is how Noah writes about heavy subjects like race, poverty, and domestic violence with a comedian’s eye for absurdity and a son’s deep loyalty to his mother. The quotes below are some of the lines that stay with you long after you close the book.

If you want the full story behind these quotes, check out my extended summary of Born a Crime for a closer look at the events and people that shaped Noah’s life.

These quotes cover everything from Noah’s relationship with his mother Patricia to his sharp observations about how language, race, and class work in South Africa. Some are funny, some are painful, and most are both at the same time.

Born A Crime Quotes

Here are some of the best quotes from Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime:

1. “We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

2. “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.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

3. “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.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

4. “The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. 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, Born a Crime

5. “I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

6. “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, Born a Crime

7. “Nelson Mandela once said, ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’ He was so right. When you make the effort to speak someone else’s language, even if it’s just basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them, ‘I understand that you have a culture and identity that exists beyond me. I see you as a human being” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

8. “Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

9. “But the real world doesn’t go away. Racism exists. People are getting hurt. And just because it’s not happening to you, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. And at some point you have to choose; black or white, pick a side. You can try to hide from it. You can say, oh I don’t take sides, but at some point, life will force you to pick a side.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

10. “I was blessed with another trait I inherited from my mother, her ability to forget the pain in life. I remember the thing that caused the trauma, but I don’t hold onto the trauma. I never let the memory of something painful prevent me from trying something new.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

11. “Relationships are built in the silences. You spend time with people, you observe them and interact with them, and you come to know them—and that is what apartheid stole from us: time.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

12. “Comfort can be dangerous. Comfort provides a floor but also a ceiling.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

13. “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.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

14. “Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared language says “We’re the same.” A language barrier says “We’re different.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

15. “My mom did what school didn’t. She taught me how to think.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

16. “When it was time to pick my name, she chose Trevor, a name with no meaning whatsoever in South Africa, no precedent in my family It’s not even a Biblical name. “It’s just a name,” he explains. “My mother wanted her child beholden to no fate. She wanted me to be free to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone.” ― Trevor Noah

17. “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.” ― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

Final thoughts

Noah’s writing works because he never separates humor from hardship. The funniest moments in the book are often the ones rooted in real danger, and the most painful ones carry an undercurrent of warmth. These quotes reflect that balance: they’re honest about how brutal systems of oppression can be, and just as honest about the creativity and love people bring to surviving them.

If any of these lines hit home, the full book is worth your time. Noah’s voice on the page is as sharp and engaging as it is on screen, and the story he tells about his mother is one of the most compelling portraits of parenthood you’ll find in any memoir.