Girl #1: I really like where I live now. Where do you want to live after school? Brooklyn Heights?
Girl #2: I want to live on the Upper East Side, far away from the subway… I plan on cabbing everywhere.
Girl #1: That can get really expensive.
Girl #2: I lived frugally all through undergrad. I plan on living large.
Girl #1: What are you studying, again?
Girl #2: Literature.
–26th & 1st
Overheard by: goodbye blue monday
Angry woman on cell: I don’t care if you are an ordained fucking minister, you can go straight to fucking hell!
–Barnes & Noble, Union Square
Overheard by: Last-minute shopper
Crazy lady into microphone: Just because you don’t do drugs or have sex doesn’t mean you’re not going to hell!
–Subway station, 43rd & Broadway, Times Square
Teacher: Let’s go to hell!
–Stuyvesant High
Hobo: Is this the train to hell? It is! Oh my god, you’re all in purgatory!
–A train, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Geneva
Scruffy artist type, to self: I’m not in hell, I’m in New York. I’m not in hell, I’m in New York…
–Elevator, Bellevue Hospital
Overheard by: David
Student #1: I finally finished that annotated bibliography.
Student #2: Oh, that’s not due until Thursday.
Student #1: Thursday?
Student #2: Yeah, didn’t you get the e-mail?
Student #1: E-mail?!
Student #2: Well, it was mentioned in class on Tuesday.
Student #1: Class?!
–NYU
Girl: Jordan*, are you in the special English class, too?
Jordan: Yeah.
Girl: Why are we in that class? Is it something like an advanced class?
Jordan: No, it’s more like a retard class…
–Times Square
College stoner: Wouldn’t it be awesome if, instead of being Oedipus’s mother, Jocasta was Wal-Mart or some other embodiment of the commercial-industrial complex? And, instead of blinding himself with his mother-wife’s brooches, Oedipus stabs himself in the eyes with his name tag pin? Like, I wonder what that all would mean, dude. You ever think about that?
Studious black friend: Wow. Pretentious much? Or are you just hashed right now?
College stoner: Hashed, man. Totally. What were we talking about, again? Oh, yeah!
–The Strand, Union Square
Overheard by: neongensis
Teen to another: Yo, if I pass in June, I’ll only be in high school five years! [Pounds fists with pal.]
–F train
Chick: I used to be a straight-A student until I realized I was just learning how to get A’s.
–Diner, Chelsea
Frat boy: There are still wedgies in Quaker school.
–19th & 5th
Overheard by: Jeff McCrum
Lunching chick: I mean, I only feel sort of responsible for their illiteracy. I am their teacher…
–Dishes Restaurant, 45th St
Overheard by: Literate
Teen: No lie, my nigga — I wrote a perfect essay! I wrote a perfect essay, nigga!
–Marte Valle Prep School, Stanton & Norfolk
Teacher giving tour: Back then it was very difficult to graduate from high school, and it still is, judging from the amount of people who drop out. Although a tree stump could graduate from Saint Ann’s… Okay, no one put that in the school newspaper quotes… Please…
–Chinatown
Student: Um, sir, don’t you have to divide through by X?
Elderly math teacher: I have no idea what you just said, but I’m sure it was provocative.
–Stuyvesant High
Overly energetic theology professor: Now, let’s talk about the apocalypse!
Several un-enthused students: Yay…
–Fordham University
Overheard by: Sromeo
Professor: What have I told you about fairness?
Student: That we should forget about it.
Professor: Yes!
–NYU Law School
Professor: Obviously, this was a very difficult sound to pronounce. Not Latin, Greek, or even Sanskrit uses it. It does not occur outside of the proto-Indo-European language.
Student: Why did they use it?
Professor: They didn’t.
Student: I mean the Indo-Europeans — if it was so difficult to pronounce, why would–
Professor, interrupting: Why the hell does anybody do anything?!
–Etymology class, Hunter College
