Dumb chick #1: What are those Jewish people with the curls called?
Dumb chick #2: I think they're called “aesthetic Jews.” Or “hestetic Jews.”
Dumb chick #1: Oh. I though they were Amish.
–Elevator, Midtown Building
Overheard by: I know what they're called
Gentile #1: I’m thinking he looks more like a rabbi. Can’t you just picture the yarmulke on his head?
Gentile #2: Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of wood.
Gentile #1: Clay!
Gentile #2: Clay? Oh, it is clay… see, that’s what makes me not Jewish.
Gentile #1: Believe it or not, in Catholic school during Hanukkah they had us play dreidel games and eat latkes and stuff.
Gentile #2: That’s very weird.
Gentile #1: Hey, it was better than reading the Bible.
Gentile #2: Touché.
–New School for Social Research
Guy: There’s a Bennigan’s here now?
Girl: Sure, New York’s getting everything: Bennigan’s, Outback, Applebee’s, Chevy’s.
Guy: Who knew the four horsemen of the apocalypse were chain restaurants?
–48th & 8th
Overheard by: Amanda
Two hobos are passing a bottle.
Woman: You can’t do that! This is a passenger train…The blood of Jesus Christ! You can’t do that; this is a passenger train! You need to find Jesus!…That is the devil’s drink. By the blood of Jesus you need to repent!
Hobo #1: Lady, I am the devil.
Woman: You can’t do that on a passenger train! If I see a police I will have you arrested!
Hobo #2: You wanna borrow my cell phone?
–F train
20 year-old guy: What if the afterlife and hell exists? I mean if it does, there has to be a society because billions of people would be there by now.
Friend: Yeah…
20 year-old: So that's a lot of people, like a society has to emerge since there can't be that many demons and torturers. You would have like a McDonald's and people working there. (pause) But you could be working there, and it could be every day for an eternity.
Friends: That's so much worse than hell.
–New Jersey Transit, Port Authority Bus Terminal
Girl #1: He fine.
Girl #2: Who? Anakin?
Girl #1: Yeah.
Girl #2: Finer den Usher?
Girl #1: Nah, nobody finer den Usher.
–The Pavilion, Park Slope
Black guy: Yo, fuck the Jedi. It’s all about the Dark Side. I’m the other Dark Lord you’ve been looking for.
–86th & Lexington
Overheard by: Joshua S.
Girl: Oh my god, all this time I thought I was a Buddhist, but I’m really a Sith.
–UA movie theater, Union Square
Overheard by: Lara Evangelista
Old man #1: I don’t know what happened! The other day I was 22 years old. Time really goes by, doesn’t it?
Old man #2: It sure does… I’m 76.
Old man #1: That is good… I hope heaven is nice.
–PATH station, 9th St
Polish girl #1: Was that the Cardinal over there?
Polish girl #2: No. The Cardinal wears red.
Polish guy: Oh man! If the Pope was on top of the Cardinal, that would be so Polish!
Polish girls: …
Polish guy: No! I mean, like the flag!
–Pulaski Day Parade, 5th Ave & 52nd St
Overheard by: J. G. Lapinski
Son: Daddy, what’s that?
Father: That’s the Watchtower.
Son: What do they do there?
Father: That’s where they teach people how to ring doorbells.
–B train, Manhattan Bridge
Overheard by: Meg
A guy is ogling two girls.
Girl #1: Oh, no. What do you do when a Jewish guy won’t stop staring at you?
Girl #2: The sign of the cross.
–Starbucks, Queens