I am a huge fan of Trevor Noah and though I was late to the party, I am so glad I finally got to read Born a Crime. Before getting it, I heard lots of praises but I also read a few critical comments about the book so I kept an open mind.
Thankfully, I ended up loving it. It actually inspired me to start reading memoirs like Educated by Tara Westover and Becoming by Michelle Obama and now I can’t wait to get my hands on the next memoir in my list.
Born a Crime addresses a whole range of issues from love to domestic violence in such a powerful way. I could not think of a better way to do justice to the message of the book, so I decided to share some of my favorite quotes from the book and what my takeaway was.
18 Amazing quotes by Brene Brown
Snippets and Takeaways from Born A Crime by Trevor Noah on various topics
“Learn from your past and be better because of your past, 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.”
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
I think this is an important lesson that we could all learn. Instead of being bitter about what you have been through in your past, learn from your pain and move forward from it.
If you think too much about the ass-kicking your mom gave you, or the ass-kicking that life gave you, you’ll stop pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules. It’s better to take it, spend some time crying, then wake up the next day and move on. You’ll have a few bruises and they’ll remind you of what happened and that’s okay. But after a while, the bruises fade, and they fade for a reason – because now it’s time to get up to some shit again.
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
On love and life:
Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
On fear and regret:
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. “What if…” “If only…” “I wonder what would have…” You will never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
On money and freedom
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.
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
On success and limitations:
Sometimes the reason why people have ‘small dreams’ is that they have not been exposed to the possibilities around them or they lack the tools needed for them to unlock their potential
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.
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
The next time you are in a position to help someone, it would be nice to not only give information to them, give them the tools they need too.
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.”
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
On Comfort:
Comfort can be dangerous. Comfort provides a floor but also a ceiling.
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
On domestic violence
It is so easy, from the outside, to put the blame on the woman and say “You just need to leave.” … Where does a woman go when she leaves one man who hits her, maybe even worse than the first? Where does a woman go when she’s single with three kids and she lives in a society that makes her a pariah for being a manless woman? Where she is seen as a whore for doing that? Where does she go? What does she do?
~ Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
Your turn
There is a lot to learn from Born a Crime and these quotes are just a small indication of the wealth that is in this book. I hope you found a quote that resonated with you.
Have you read Born a Crime? What’s your favorite quote? Share in the comments if you don’t mind.
