Compare/Contrast

Teenager: Dude, my sister is always stealing her friends’ books, but like, sometimes no one has the book she wants, how much easier would it be if there was like, a Blockbuster, but for books.

–Blockbuster

Girlfriend to boyfriend: Did you bring something to read on the train? I’m trying to decide if I want to talk to you, sleep, or read my book.

–A Train

Overheard by: The Green Cat

Teenage girl: I need Romeo and Juliet. But do you have any with, like, the English on one side and Shakespeare on the other?

–Barnes & Noble, Union Square

Spoiled colleg girl to friend: My mom really wants me to get a nice big tote because she’s really worried about how I’m going to carry all my books. But I’m, like, worried if I’m even going to read my books.

–Outside Bloomingdale’s Dressing Room

Chick: So they called him up on stage, and they were like: "We want to bestow this honor upon you." And he was like: "It is indeed an honor, an honor indeed." And I’m all like: "Come on, like, I mean, seriously, like, who talks like that? Can’t you take it down a notch! Don’t you read US Weekly or anything?

–Starbucks, Woolworth Building

NYU girl to male friend: There’s almost something poetic about it, you know? Like, the 20-year-old Catholic virgin from Connecticut losing it to the older Ecuadorian lothario? Hell, I should just write a book about my life.

–NYU Dining Hall

Quirky 30-something woman #1: When I was dating my ex-boyfriend I felt like I was smuggling drugs… 8 1/2 inches of them.
Quirky 30-something woman #2: Dude, he was smuggling drugs in his scary, scary beard.

–Starbucks

Skinny twink #1: I know that guy.
Skinny twink #2: You know her, that guy from the chorus, the concert-soloist, that guy who blew you at Splash, and now him! That makes the fifth person you've seen that you know, in less than an hour.
Skinny twink #1: Well, New York is this big! (holds up little finger)
Skinny twink #2: And you're a whore.

–Gay Restaurant, Hell's Kitchen

Overheard by: Eugene

Woman: Moving in trash bags is so refugee.

–Park Slope

Dude #1: Lots of people tell me I’m the gayest straight man they know.
Dude #2: Mmmm… No, I know a gayer straight guy than you.

–F station, Bergen St

Overheard by: Rose Fox

Suit on cell: You know, in the 80s everyone and their brother were making limos in their basement.

–17th & Broadway

Overheard by: Vespa

(obnoxious pimped-out car revs up at stop sign, then tears down the road)
Old guy: That guy's goin' back to the future! 88 miles per hour!

–9th & Stuyvesant

Tough-looking woman to younger one: Let me teach you how to break into a car…

–27th b/w 6th & 5th

Overheard by: Kyle

Russian guy on cell (in Russian): I am not seeing her as a woman, I am seeing her as a potential driver of a vehicle.

–Lower East Side

50-something woman: I haven't seen a good pimpmobile since the seventies. I mean, what happened to all the purple, maroon, and gold? What is all of this crap with yellow hummers and black Escalades these days, it's like all the pimps went to finishing school sometime in 1981.

–Central Park

Overheard by: Graham Davis

Middle aged man: I feel as though methamphetamines don't destroy your mind so much as ruin your body and make you cover it in tattoos. It's not like they were on heroin.
Companion, nodding his head: Mmm-hmm.

–5th St & 19th St

Guy in business casual: Deer, zombies, Nazis… They're all fair game in my book.
Friend: I've never been hunting before, but I do like fishing.

–73rd St

Overheard by: Irish Dave

Unattractive girl, whining: Baby, don't get the carrot cake.
Unattractive boyfriend: Why not? I like carrot cake. You don't have to eat it.
Unattractive girl: Well, I have no self-control, and I don't want to get fat.
Unattractive boyfriend: Baby, carrot cake is not your problem. Mayonnaise is your problem.

–Westside Market, Upper West Side

Overheard by: They should switch to Miracle Whip

Opera Fan: Well the best thing about it is, he’s the closest thing we have to a castrato today.

–UES