Girlfriend: Your family can’t be any worse than my roommates at boarding school. The worst was when they made me dress up like a cowboy and do stripteases to early Madonna.
-Q train
Overheard by: Jonathan Graves
Girlfriend: Your family can’t be any worse than my roommates at boarding school. The worst was when they made me dress up like a cowboy and do stripteases to early Madonna.
-Q train
Overheard by: Jonathan Graves
Disaffected white woman #1: Stella*'s kid died last week.
Disaffected white woman #2: Oh. Well, it sucks when someone's kid dies before they expect it to… oh, Topshop's having a sale!
–Broome & Broadway
Overheard by: office peon will soon be a Vermonter
Guy #1, in elevator at criminal courthouse: I don't understand. Why is it that every time I get arrested and come to court for something I did, they pull me aside and lock me up for something I didn't do? All I have to do is touch the door of the courthouse and they pull me aside and tell me I robbed the family dollar store! Why would I rob the family dollar?
Guy #2 in elevator: It's a family! Trying to make a dollar!
Guy #1: Exactly!
–Criminal Courthouse, Brooklyn
Overheard by: NYC Kim
Guy: Hey, my brothers are in town.
Girl: Hey! Looks like there will be a whole set of teeth in the house!
Guy: You're a bitch.
–Wall St
Overheard by: Emily
50-something woman: Do you have baked goods?
Girl with empty wicker basket: Excuse me?
50-something woman: Baked goods. Where are you going with them?
Girl with empty wicker basket (slowly looking into basket and then back at woman): To grandmother's house.
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Little Red Riding Ho
Professor: Why do people take drugs? Because their lives suck. That's right…all of you.
–Manhattan College
Chemistry professor, discussing quantum physics: If you beat on something hard enough, you can get it to do what you want!
–St. John's University, New York City
Property professor, after playing Barbra Streisand's version of "Not While I'm Around": Now, is that the same song as Steven Sondheim's version in Sweeney Todd?? (dreamily) Well, when Barbra Streisand does a song…is it ever the same song?
–St. John's Law School
Overheard by: Cori
Professor: If Obama wins the election, I'll buy you all beer.
–The Cooper Union
Professor: So the way Saint Augustine broke the Lord's commandment not to steal (nobody in class is listening) Was all just his way of honoring the Lord's law, by creating his own. It's sort of like when you have a child that's not allowed to stay up past nine but he knows his parents can stay up as late as they want, so in an act of rebellion he smears his shit all over the walls.
–NYU
Professor: Now, for your presentations, there is a time limit. If you go over nine minutes, I will cut you. (silent pause) …off.
–City College of New York
Guy: Happy Birthday!
Woman in Bday hat: Happy Birthday? I’m old enough to be your fucking mother. Wait, how the fuck old are you?
Guy: 30.
Woman: OK, maybe not, but old enough to be your father’s younger sister’s kid’s mother.
–outside Comic Strip Live, UES
20-something woman: You’re going to worship my mother when you meet her.
Man: I will?
Woman: Yes. Because I do.
— Pizzeria, Boerum Hill
Black hobo to rush-hour crowd: So, did ya' hear now Obama's president they gonna tear down the Statue of Liberty? Yeah, they gonna put up a new statue–one o' Aunt Jemima!"
–Shuttle Train GCT
Overheard by: Mrs. Butterworth
Hobo: Hey, kids! I wish I was a kid again. Then I'd have a hundred million dollars!
–Henry St, Brooklyn Heights
Overheard by: Jesse
Hobo to clerk: Don't worry, baby, I'll take care of the Gaza Strip.
–Deli, 45th & 3rd
Overheard by: LP
Hobo to girl with boxing gloves attached to her backpack: Hi, there! Give a little money to help the homeless? (silence) I'll take anything but a punch in the face!
–Astor & Lafayette
Overheard by: Andi C.
Shouting hobo: The family that scratches their butts together has smelly fingers!
–34th St & 3rd Ave
Overheard by: Kramer
Hobo crossing street and pushing shopping cart: Hi ho Silver!
–23rd St & Park Ave
Tourist #1: My family and I, we're not really tourists. We know what stupid stuff not to say and we come here all the time. I mean, we are tourists, but we don't act like ones.
Tourist #2: Does it make you feel better to say that?
Tourist #1: Yes. Yes it does.
–42nd St
