Queer: I need to cut my fingernails. I keep meaning to get clippers, but then I forget.
Girl assistant: Why don't you just bite them?
Queer (offended): I am not a farmer!
–Queens
Overheard by: Jodi
Queer: I need to cut my fingernails. I keep meaning to get clippers, but then I forget.
Girl assistant: Why don't you just bite them?
Queer (offended): I am not a farmer!
–Queens
Overheard by: Jodi
Metalhead, playing guitar and singing: Buy some fuckin' poptarts /buy some fuckin' weed/ buy some fuckin' cigarettes/buy everything you need!
–Washington Square Park
Overheard by: j
Singing hobo pushing cart: I am wiiiise. I am wise!
–Union Square Station
Overly flamboyant gay guy, singing: I kissed a girl and I liked iiiit. (swishes hips while walking)
–11th St & 7th Ave
Overheard by: Mal Sullivan
Singing gay guy to another, clapping hands in rhythm: You look like a cunt, you act like a cunt, you smell like a cunt, you feel like a cunt…
–2 Train
Overheard by: drew
Hobo, getting into train and taking out electric guitar and amp: Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please! This song is for the white lady with the orange pocketbook. She reminds me of Martha Stewart…when she got out of jail. (starts singing) 3 train white lady is my girl, my girl, my girl!
–Downtown 3 Train
Overheard by: Jingles
Little girl in stroller, singing happily: Doe, a deer, a hee-hale deer. Ray, a drop of golden pee-pee…
–E Train
Conductor: Welcome to another day on the N train, ladies and gentlemen. If you will look out the window to your right you will see absolutely nothing!
–N train
Conductor on speaker: Kings Highway?! Why’s it gotta be Kings Highway?
–B train, Kings Highway station
Overheard by: I feel his pain
Lady conductor: Attention, ladies and gentlemen, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. If you need to get to 28th Street, 23rd Street, or 18th Street, well, you’re screwed.
–1 train, 34th St
Overheard by: Nettle
Conductor: There’s another train right behind us. There really is. I can see the lights. It could be a bus, but we are in a tunnel underground with tracks running through it, so I’m sure there is another F train behind us.
–F train
Overheard by: I can see the light too
Conductor: Please take small children as you exit the train… Oh… I mean, please take small children by the hand as you leave the train.
–NJ Transit, Penn Station
Cheerful conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, there is no downtown 2 train, but luckily we’re going uptown, so it doesn’t matter.
–2 train
Overheard by: andy kleiman
Conductor: We’re not the NYPD or the FDNY, New York’s finest and bravest. Above or below ground, we’re the MTA, and we move New York. Ya heard?!
–A train, between 125th & 59th St
Eight-year-old boy, carrying real but child-size golf clubs: I have two lawyers, don’t I daddy?
Father: Yes.
Eight-year-old friend: I have three.
–18th & Broadway
Girl #1: What do you call a person who delivers newspapers?
Girl #2: A “delivery person.”
Girl #1: Fine, be the non-conformist.
Girl #2: What would the conformist say?
Girl #1: “Paperboy,” and then get confused because what if it's an old woman?
Girl #2: Oh right, so, “paper person.” But then it sounds like those paper people chains I used to make as a kid, except mine were always awful and deformed…because you make one little mistake and then they're all fucked up. Suddenly I've got a chain of twenty-one legged freaks and can't sleep at night.
Girl #1: “Twenty one-legged freaks.” Not “twenty-one legged freaks.”
Girl #2: Though both terrifying.
Girl #1: The heck you talking about?
–Union Square
Queer: I don't want someone to fuck me with their stoma!
–11th St & 6th Ave
Overheard by: Amanda
Gay guy: That girl is such a Rice Krispie.
–Outside Gristedes, Christopher St
Overheard by: McF
Queer on cell: And I said to him, "Take it like the bottom you are!"
–8th St & 23rd St
Gay guy: I just got pounded by the two hottest guys I've ever seen!
–58th & 9th
Gay man (getting his hair cut by another): So we went to Fire Island this weekend and we went to this party. I said, "Patrick, you better pee on Jon right now to mark your territory."
–57th & 7th
Gay man on cell: Oh, morals disappear after 8pm!
–Amsterdam & 83rd
Girl, as subway doors open: It smells like ass.
Guy: It's New York City, were you expecting sunshine and rainbows?
–Uptown F Train
Crazy bag lady on the l train: It is the winter of our discontent!
Ghetto girl #1: I dunno what you talkin’ bout. It’s content up in this motherfuckin’ winter. Maybe your ass would be contenter if you got a job.
Ghetto girl #2: Girl, shut up. You ain’t got no job either.
–L Train
Overheard by: ForniKate
Girl #1: Look, yo! You got a tumor on your arm, a tumor!
Girl #2: That’s not a tumor, it’s a mosquito bite… like my tits!
–E Train
Overheard by: Jatmos
Tourist #1: Are we in the airport?
Tourist #2: No.
Tourist #3: It's the train port.
Tourist #1: Is this a mall?
Tourist #2: No.
Tourist #1: It looks like a mall.
Tourist #2: It's not a mall.
Tourist #1: It smells like a mall.
–Penn Station, LIRR
Overheard by: Ceetar