Personal life

• 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.
  • On how his upbringing informs his comedy in “Life’s Work: An Interview with Trevor Noah” in Harvard Business Review (September-October, 2018)

• 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.
  • On connecting with your audience in “Life’s Work: An Interview with Trevor Noah” in Harvard Business Review (September-October, 2018)

• 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.
  • On never expressing anger in his comedy in “Trevor Noah interview” in Time Out

• …I like to think that I am the product of a world of impossibilities. You know, my mother is where she should have never been. I think my mother made greater leaps than I have ever made. It's just that her leaps were made within her world and so maybe don't seem as grand. But I think my family, myself, my country, we come from a place where we have achieved the impossible…
  • On his family history in “Trevor Noah's Lesson To Young Readers: It's Freeing To Define Yourself On Your Own Terms” in WBUR (June 4th, 2019)

The Daily Show

• 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.
  • (8 October 2015^[1])

• 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.
  • (November 18th, 2015^[2])

• 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.
  • (March 16th, 2016^[3])

• Race jokes are kind of like orcas: powerful and entertaining, but you put them on display in the wrong environment and people are going to get hurt, and the joke might die. Like this one just did.
  • (April 12th, 2016^[4])

• Hey, son, what the hell is with your haircut? Did you see a paintbrush and say "I want that dude's look!"?
  • (April 13th, 2016^[5])

• The credits from the second Godfather are better than Godfather III.
  • (April 14th, 2016^[6])

• Let's be honest: in general men are stronger than women. That's not sexist, it's just true. If anyone is sexist, it's Nature. Yeah, Nature is the one who was hanging stuff out and was like: "Ok, men, you get the big muscles and you orgasm every time you have sex. Hell, sometimes you have an orgasm just by accident! That's how easy it's gonna be for you! And for the ladies... you get to put an entire human being out of your vagina. Have a good day."
  • (May 3rd, 2016^[7])

• In life only three things are certain: death, Adobe updates and taxes.
  • (May 13th, 2016^[8])

• ISIS without guns is just basically a blog.
  • (June 13th, 2016^[9])

• Juggling is such a white thing, as well, when you think about it. No, just the whole concept. You have so much stuff that, at some point, you are like: "I can't even hold all of this stuff! I'll have to throw some of it in the air!" That's probably how juggling started. Someone was like: "Wow, you have three things, but you only have two hands. Would you like to share something with me?" "No, no, I'll figure this out".
  • (March 9th, 2017^[10])

• 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.
  • (June 6th, 2017^[11])

• 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.
  • (July 11th, 2017)

• [...] 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 purpose 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.
  • (July 20th, 2017^[12])

• Maybe we need to change who gets the Nobel Peace Prize, and when. Because so many people have won the prize and they've benefitted from all of its prestige, and then they've gone on to not be peaceful. Like, maybe we should only give the Nobel Peace Prize to people after their career is over and they've passed away, right? It's at the end. We can call it the "Rest in Peace Prize." Then we know you're not gonna surprise us, you're not gonna hurt anyone. Unless someone trips on your grave.
  • (September 13th, 2017^[13])

Born a Crime

The Oscars

• 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.’
  • The Xhosa phrase used by Trevor Noah in this quote was a purposeful mistranslation with the correct translation being: "White people don't know that I'm lying."^[14]
  • (February 24th, 2019)