Suit: Goddamn piece of fucking shit.
Old lady: Geez.
Suit: What’s your fucking problem?
Old lady: The dumbing down of our language; everyone is so crude. Suit: Where are you from, the Little House on the Prairie?
Old lady: I’m from New York, you fucking asshole.
–47th & 5th
Overheard by: Anne Turner
Tourist lady: Wow, it’s like a sea of people!
B&T guy: Welcome to the city that never sleeps!
NY woman: Fuck all of you.
–Times Square station
Overheard by: Emily A
Dad to post-tantrum kid: So, did you get a lot of crying done today?
Little boy: Yeah…
–Westside Market, 76th & Broadway
Overheard by: Ri & Yuu
Hobo: Was it right to be kicked out of a house for being an adult with a child mind? You don’t get it, lady. There’s a whole house of adults with child minds. Whatever. See ya! Wouldn’t want to be ya!
–F train
Queer: He totally has to understand that he’s crazy and that those Martha Stewart people are crazy too!
–27th street office
Crazy lady: Well, I think you should give me my musical instruments back because I know that you’ve been stealing them every day for the last nine years. Yes, I’m sure! I have proof. You see, that’s not music. That’s not rock and roll. That’s just crazy.
–Bedford Avenue station
Overheard by: Greg Rutter
Crazy man: I already told you I don’t have no chicken. Besides, I gave you that tree last week.
–54th & 11th
Crazy woman: I’ve got demons behind me, shit next to me, and the ugly ones in front of me. I need an angel above me.
–World Financial Center
Overheard by: Dr. Ballon
Crazy bag lady: Stay away from the people! Stay away from the idiot Mexicans!
–Union Square
Overheard by: Kaitlen
Suit: …and I swear to God, man, the whole time? That creepy deaf-mute babysitter from across the hall?…is watching me.
–46th & 8th
Overheard by: ballpeen hammer
Crazy lady: I don’t believe this. Pussyass son of a fucking faggot!
–Lexington & 23rd
Hobo: Would someone please tell Courtney Love to get her goddamned dick out of my mouth? Thank you! Would someone please tell Courtney Love to get her goddamned dick out of my mouth? Thank you! Would someone please tell Courtney Love to get her goddamned dick out of my mouth? Thank you!
–19th between 7th & 8th
Guy to friend: When Obama wins, I'm going to slap a white person.
–Central Park Bench
Overheard by: Lane
Lady getting sprayed with perfume by her friend: Stop. Stop it! You gonna make me smell like white people.
–East Drive, Prospect Park
Overheard by: White smelly jogger
Black gay man sans shirt, upon seeing group of white girls wandering: Oh my god, white girls! Oh, I didn't mean it like that.
–Christopher St
Gentleman walking past Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too restaurant: Man, black people eating tofu, white people eating spoonbread…
–W 110th & Columbus
Gingy, referring to ebony colored condoms: This way, when I fuck a white boy he'll still be black!
–E Broadway 99 Cent Store
Black lady in african garb: Too many white flower! Need more black power! (the only white girl around looks up confusedly, now black lady screams in her face) White flower!
–125th & Adam Clayton Powell
Overheard by: Ruby
Chick: The waiter said I couldn’t sit on his lap. Then he said not only couldn’t I sit on his lap, that the people next to us complained that I was sitting on his lap! That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life, that you can’t sit on someone’s lap in a restaurant. And to blame the people next to us, who were lovely?
–Our Place, 3rd Avenue
Suit #1: So where are you going on vacation?
Suit #2: St. Bart’s.
Suit #1: Are you staying in a house or at a hotel?
Suit #2: A house. God, I hate hotels. Inevitably there will be one guest that irritates me; I’ll see him around at lunch or something. Then I’ll obsess about it, all vacation long.
Suit #1: Yeah.
–Landmark Gourmet, Pearl Street
Overheard by: freshie
Angry construction worker to befuddled construction worker: Don't look at me like that! Don't say that to me! Go home and fuck my wife, asshole!
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Jumana
Construction working to another: Man, I need to get me a bi girlfriend. She'd be lovin' me, and I'd be lovin' her friends.
–Columbus Circle
Overheard by: Rich R.
Construction worker, singing: If there's a skeeter on your Peter/whack it off! (claps twice)
–Waverly Place & 5th Ave
Overheard by: steph
Tough construction worker, unloading van: Yo, I was up til like 2 am watchin' Scooby Doo Where Are You!
–Humboldt & Withers
Overheard by: francesca
Construction worker, staring up at construction skyscraper: It's all twisted. It's going to come down.
–Williams St
Overheard by: Sonya
Conductor: Please stand clear of the closing doors. (pause) Please stand clear of the closing doors. (pause) Station police officer, please apprehend the man holding the doors in the 6th car. (pause, then doors close) Hahaha, that always works.
–B Train
Overheard by: JustMe
Conductor: The door in car number two is not working, if you are looking at this door not opening I recommend moving, youuuuuuuu might want to move.
–LIRR
Overheard by: Brian Broker
MTA engineer: Please use all exits. For the love of god, people, use all the doors to get out of the train. What the fuck, people, use the doors. Thank you.
–G Train
Overheard by: lolz
Conductor: Please stop holding the doors. (people continue to hold doors). I'm already on the clock, I have nowhere to be.
–A Train
Overheard by: oliviz
Disgruntled subway conductor: Listen up, y'all! This train needs to move! Do not try to hold open the doors! Do not run at closing doors! Do not stick anything in the doors! That includes arms, legs, obnoxiously expensive purses, children, animals, whatever! Let's go!
–1 Train
Overheard by: Sarah
Conductor: Please stand clear of the doors or it will bruise yo face.
–C Train
Overheard by: Chris
Thugged-out camp counselor: Twenty dollars to get in?! This place better have an open bar ‘n’ some shit!
–Bronx Zoo
Overheard by: EthanK
Dude: Yo, this conversation is way too intellectual. Let’s go — I just wanna get drunk and find some hos…
–56th & 8th
Overheard by: JGT
30-ish dude on cell: Yeah, he was so drunk he tried to pay the tab with his health insurance card. Then he got mad when they wouldn’t take it.
–43rd & 9th
Guy on phone: That bar sounds awful. I’ll be right there!
–53rd & 3rd
Crazy woman: I’m still alive and breathing, thank you very much, despite the best efforts of the Devil.
–Food Court, Grand Central
Overheard by: Rich Mintz
