All Wednesday One-Liners

Conductor: Stand clear of the closing doors. Person in the back of the train, step out into the train. Step into the train! Excuse me, in the back with the grey shirt, step into the train. Yes you! I’m looking right at you! Oh my god! Ladies and gentlemen, we’re being held in the station because someone in the back of the train wearing a grey shirt is blocking the doors.

–B Train

Conductor [as passengers keep blocking the subway doors from closing]: You’re invited!

–1 Train

Conductor: Stand clear of the closing doors. [Alert signal, doors re-open.] Goddamit! There’s always someone… Isn’t there?

–R Train

Conductor, in completely empty train: Ladies and gentlemen, if you get to the train and it is full, don’t try to force your way in. Don’t block the way of the door closing either. I don’t want any body parts obstructing them. Also, if you get to the train as the doors are closing, don’t try to pry them back open. Don’t try sticking your arms in between them either. Very bad idea. Just stand on the platform, wave, and say: "Bye bye, train".

–A Train

Snarky train conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It’s very simple: We open the doors, you get on, we close the doors. If you are going to walk past two or three doors trying to find a car or space that you like, don’t be surprised if the doors close on you before you can get on. We are not mind-readers.

–B Train

Conductor, to guy holding train doors for his girlfriend: Sir, please let the doors close, we can’t wait for your girlfriend. [Some time passes.] Sir, you are young and not unattractive, I am sure you can find someone else to sleep with you on the train.

–L Train

Pragmatic bouncer: Well, there weren’t enough women there, so we threw in a tranny…

–Broadway Caribou Coffee

Overheard by: jenny Lui

Man, to friend: So, he says to me "Oh, I have a sex-change operation scheduled for that day, so I can’t make it."

–46th, b/w 8th & 9th

Overheard by: christine

30-something woman with nose ring, on cell: She’s like a transvestite… And an ugly bird. She’s like a transvestite and an emu. [pause] It’s a really ugly bird.

–7th Ave

Overheard by: James from Jersey

Guy: So then I was like, suck my twat!

–21st & 6th

20-something girl: I had him as both a man and a woman.

–17th St & 5th Ave

Overheard by: Tater

Dude: It’s been ages since I had testicles!

–Grand Sichuan, St. Mark’s Place

Overheard by: Rose Fox

Eight-year-old boy to another: You usta play dirty house with her!

–E 9th St & Ave A

Overheard by: Fred Daubert

Visibly annoyed ghetto-fab young lady, while loudly cracking her gum: They too many nationalities on this bus and most of them don’t be clean.

–57th St Bus

Overheard by: tinyfoo

Chick, looking at rat sipping from puddle: Eeeww, how can he drink that? It’s so dirty!

–6 Platform, Grand Central

Guy on escalator, to friend: … Dirty sandwich…

–E Train

Overheard by: M_C

Male student: Either you’re a dirty, stinking hippie, or you’re pretentious.

–Bard High School Early College Library

Thuggish hobo: Please! Somebody talk dirty to me!

–Washington Square Park

Woman with thick Jersey accent, very seriously: I really need to get an accent. Accents are very important to people here.

–1 Train

Overheard by: McFreaky

Drunk man screaming into cell: Stop fucking yelling!

–30th & 8th

Guy on phone: It just really bugs me that she’s always talking to other people about our relationship…

–Bedford & 4th, Williamsburg

Overheard by: andebobandy

Aussie bartender with heavy accent: He was complaining that the burger wasn’t flat because it’s hand-rolled and not frozen. [pause] Fucking foreigners.

–O’Keefe’s, Court Street, Brooklyn

Overheard by: NJH

Guy in wheelchair (peeing in a Snapple bottle) to friend: People are nasty.

–W 38th St & 8th Ave

Overheard by: Bebe

Girl to friends, while walking past bar: Oh, this is the place I got drunk at, then woke up in Queens.

–40th & 7th

Overheard by: Jesse

Drunk Italian guy, entering uptown NRW station: Uptown and Queens? That’s where all the pussy is!

–23rd & Broadway

Overheard by: Zarek

Middle-aged black woman on phone: I can see all Queens from up in here, nigga. Aw, damn, I can see that Rhode Island shit now.

–Roosevelt Island Tram

Overheard by: Jack Fleming

20-Something hipster girl on cell: Why do you have to get off the phone? You’re eating? Again? You big fat ass… God, I hate Queens.

–Queens Bridge

Overheard by: SL

Conductor over loudspeaker: You are now on the N train running to Queens… Unlike yesterday when I was in Queens running the train on all of youse. Enjoy.

–N Train

Overheard by: Kevin

Voice from dressing room stall: I am at a Sears in Queens. S. O. S.

–Sears, Rego Park, Queens

Overheard by: Ladle

Girl #1: [crying]Girl #2: Sorry, when I see a women crying in a pharmacy I just assume she is pregnant.

–400 W 58th St

Overheard by: Tex117

Frat boy #1: Dude! Look at that girl in that store… She’s checkin’ me out.
Frat boy #2: Dude, that’s a mannequin!
Frat boy #1: Oh.

–Rockefeller Center

Overheard by: Michelle

Bossy, fanny-pack-wearing tourist lady: No, no… That map is wrong. We want Broadway and it’s … That way! [Points emphatically toward 8th avenue and storms away.]

–West 47th b/w Broadway & 8th Avenue

Overheard by: tinyfoo

Tourist, whispering to friend: There are a lot of Jewish people in here.

–B&H Photo

Tourist girl: Dad! Look! It’s Times Square! Walk this way.

–Rector St & Broadway

Overheard by: Jax

Tourist lady peering in shop window: Ooooh, calendars! Ooooh, t-shirts! Oh, we’re gonna have to come back here!

–48th & Broadway

Overheard by: Rose Fox

Tourist: Oh honey, look at this purse I bought! It’s a real coach bag and it was so cheap. I bought it on Canal street. You should see all of the Gucci, Prada, and Louis Vuitton they’ve got. I can’t believe you can get the real thing for so cheap.

–Times Square

Overheard by: Johanna

Tourist, in disbelief: People are buying shoes at 11 o’clock at night!

–33rd & Seventh

Overheard by: Gasp!

Professor, matter of factly: In next week’s film you will see a cock. And it will ejaculate. I hope that’s okay with you all.

–Cantor Film Center, NYU

Professor: I guess I can’t trust you guys to write papers on something scandalous. Good thing I brought a pornographic film for later.

–Manhattan Campus, Pratt Institute

Overheard by: Norma Desmond

Contracts professor: So do you think Paris Hilton is a sucker?

–Brooklyn Law School

Professor to class, as he writes on board: …Moro Islamic Liberation Front, known for its acronym. [A few students get it and laugh.]

–Fordham University, Rose Hill

Overheard by: Krisztina one of the first to laugh

Professor: On this index card I’d like you all to write your name and major, as well as your career fantasies. I say career fantasies because when you graduate I’ll see you paying off your loans working at the kwik-e-mart.

–St. John’s University

Overheard by: Erum

Korean professor: Here’s how you calculate the intercept shit…

–NYU

English professor: You will find that English critical theory is the key to understanding not only literary perspectives, but also everything on YouTube.

–Fordham University

Overheard by: sromeo

Frat boy on cell: Next time this happens, just grab him by the penis and drag him into bed.

–Grand Central

Frat boy: I mean, STDs are nothing to worry about. There are more Pokemon than there are STDs!

–Bryant Park

Overheard by: Pikachu

Enthusiastic frat boy: Sure, sure, but back in history when there were no diseases…

–57th Street & 8th

Overheard by: Rose Fox

Frat boy on cell: If I were him, I’d tell her to get her boobs put in too, as long as she’s already under.

–Mercer & 8th

Incensed frat-type dude on cell: Dude! I didn’t fingerbang your sister in Tijuana! I’m not a snake like that. I fingerbanged her in Cancun, so it was on American soil… And you were in the next bed. Tell me you don’t remember any of this?!

–NR Train