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All Quotes by author - Trevor Noah

" Africa's not a color - it's a place. "

" America was a thing I saw on TV - that wasn't a real world. That wasn't within my realm of dreaming. "

" As a comedian, I'm forced to have a tough skin. Until people laugh, they are detractors. You walk into a new audience where nobody knows you, they go: 'Make us laugh. Show us what you're made of. Prove why we should be listening to you.' "

" Comedy is really getting quite popular in South Africa. "

" During my New York run, I injured my voice badly. I was getting increasingly hoarse, and it finally gave up. The doctor said I had two choices. Either cancel things, or try my luck and perhaps never speak again. That's not much of a choice. "

" I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don't really need a distinction between them. "

" I don't know how to let loose when I'm dancing to the music and the people that made the music are watching me. I've never felt so much pressure in my life. "

" I don't think I have thick skin, but I heal fast. It's easy to break through, but I heal fast. "

" 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. "

" If you laugh with somebody, then you know you share something. "

" If you look at it, the history of comedy has always been strongest among the nations who have been persecuted the most. "

" I like the anonymity, the fact that you're a stranger making strangers laugh. You aren't forcing them to laugh - it's involuntary, and that's when they give the most honest response. "

" I live in a country where I'd say nine out of ten people know me when I walk through the streets. There's people taking pictures, there's tabloids trying to make up stories. I'm used to that. The same thing when I'm in Australia or the U.K.: I get stopped. "

" I live in South Africa. I'm proud to live there. I've always said I want to be a comedian from South Africa in the world. I will stay in places for a bit here and there and pop into New York for a while, maybe stay in London for a year, but my home will always be South Africa. I enjoy it too much. "

" I lost contact with my father for many years because of apartheid. For, like, six years, I didn't see my dad. And, now, this was the six years of being a teenager. "

" I'm a quarterback. I don't need to score the touchdown. I just need to spot the pass. "

" I'm literally driving in the middle of the night, and my phone rings, and my manager says, 'How would you like to be the host of the Daily Show?' I get out the car, and I didn't have legs. You know in those movies where there's an explosion? But instead of the sound of the explosion, you hear the silence. That's literally what happened. "

" I'm not a big Hollywood guy. I don't know how the machine works. I leave that to people better than myself. "

" I'm not a confrontational person or comedian. I think we can explore more things if one of us is not fighting with the other. I take it easy. But I do like comedians who are very different from myself: I love dry comics with deadpan one-liners. I look on and think, 'That's amazing; why didn't I think of that?' "

" I'm not an abrasive person. I do speak my mind, but my goal is never to offend. I don't intentionally want to strike a chord. "

" I've always been a fan of issues around race and racialism, and I've loved playing with it. People act as though it isn't an issue, but it's a recurring theme in our lives globally. "

" I've never been afraid to fall in love, nor impatient to find it. "

" I want my audience to be my friends - that is when they will get the best comedy. If they see me as a performer, they won't get the best show. "

" I was born in South Africa during apartheid, a system of laws that made it illegal for people to mix in South Africa. And this was obviously awkward because I grew up in a mixed family. My mother's a black woman, South African Xhosa woman... and my father's Swiss, from Switzerland. "

" I was doing a show at the Comedy Store which Eddie Izzard saw, and we chatted for a bit afterwards. I didn't really know he was; we just hung out as comedians together, and when he heard my story, he said, 'Why don't you tell that on stage?' I didn't really want to burden people with all that, but he said that I could have fun with it. "

" I was the first in my family to board an airplane. I was the first in my family to get kicked off an airplane. "

" Maybe it's because I come from a very utopian world of being a comedian, but I'm used to many live comedy performances going on in any city I'm in, and each of us is trying to be the best at what we do. I don't think of it as a competition so much as a thriving comedy economy. "

" Most of my show is true; like, 90% of everything I say on stage is true. I just have to find the way to make it funny - that's the difficult thing. "

" My ideal setting is I walk from the streets, backstage, and straight onto the stage. Two minutes, and I am on the stage. That way, in my head I have gone from my world and then into a social setting with my friends. "

" My mom, through my dad, rented the apartment next door to his... he had the lease on both places. But then, she would dress up and act like his maid... a practical maid. No fantasies. "

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