Goth guy: Stop looking so happy!
Goth girl: I’m not happy!
–Grand Army Plaza
Overheard by: djingo
Goth guy: Stop looking so happy!
Goth girl: I’m not happy!
–Grand Army Plaza
Overheard by: djingo
Tween boy: Then Tom Cruise and Will Smith get married and have babies.
–74th & Amsterdam
Overheard by: Rachel
3 year old: Ahhh, my mouth is on fire! My mouth is on fire! Help me, Tom Cruise!
–89th & Broadway
Overheard by: Alex
Man to girlfriend: Shit, I like that Martha Stewart. She a gangsta in disguise.
–Kmart, Astor Place
Guy: He is like the L. Ron Hubbard of Teach for America.
–Lenny’s, 77th & 2nd
Overheard by: Rebecca
Crazy guy: You fuckers don’t deserve to be here! John Lennon died for peace and tolerance! Get the fuck out of here, queers! John died for peace and humanity!
— 72nd & Central Park West
Overheard by: emily
Chick on cell: Yeah, he wouldn’t watch my kid last night because he was hanging out with Wilmer Valderrama.
–1st Ave between 12th & 13th
Hobo: Betty Boop killed Martin Luther King!
–1 train
Overheard by: Harriet Vane
Guy #1: Don’t you hate when you are sitting on a toilet and need to spit, so you try to aim your spit in between your legs into the water, but you miss and get it all over your dick?
Guy #2: No, I never miss.
–G train
Girl: People always label me. They don’t take the time to get to know me. I’m the “Really, Really Nice Girl That’s Always Happy. With a Great Smile.”
–LIRR
Overheard by: Adina
Hipster girl, to hipster guy: Does smiling hurt you? It hurts you to smile?
–Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Center
Overheard by: gus
Singing hobos, in unison: Smile, it won’t mess up your hair!
–1 train
10-Year-Old girl: His smile haunts me.
–Dinosaur BBQ, Harlem
Overheard by: megan
Tourist dad, posing his family in front of WTC site: Smile, kids!
–Ground Zero
Overheard by: Mike Pobega
Compassionate guy: Nothing warms my heart more than a smiling retard.
–Union Square
Girl: It smells like blasphemy!
–Madison Square Park
Overheard by: I only smelled mulch
Tattooed chick: It’s Christa. You remember, Christ with an A, because I’m so fucking godlike.
–8th & A
Overheard by: Meredith
Guy: She looks like the female version of Dave, which is a bit disconcerting to me…He looks like traditional representations of Jesus.
–Manhattan bound L train
Overheard by: Philip
Guy: Me and Jesus don’t get along.
–W 30th, between 7th & 8th
Overheard by: Maggie
Femme on cell: So, like, our periods stopped at the same time for two hours so we could have sex and I was like, God loves me. Jesus was clearly gay.
–103rd & Broadway
Middle-Aged lady: Yeah, you can’t go switchin’ churches like that. That’s too many different spirits. You’ll be dealin’ with demons and stuff.
–F train
Overheard by: Yanni
College guy: No, really, dude. The guy’s a full-time, licensed exorcist!
–W 4th St A/C/E uptown platform
Overheard by: EJ
Muscular dude: I am devoted to crack but not to Christ! Please explain that to me. I’m a good crackhead, but I ain’t a good Christian!
–Downtown 1 train
Street vendor: NYU students, you gotta love them. They be going through hell and jumping out of windows and shit.
–Spring & Broadway
White girl on cell: Wait, you’re watching BET? Well, do you feel black and/or entertained?
–Union Square
Overheard by: Casey
Black guy: So you see, white bitches just don’t understand that I have a big ass penis.
–St. Mark’s
Teenage black girl: See those buildings over there? That’s where I stay. Yeah, it’s nice and shit. I like it. Too many white people moved in, though. That’s why I’m KKK…Krazy Kracker Killa!
–Uptown 1 train
Overheard by: aq
Black guy to white girl: You’d better not stay in the rain too long; sugar melts!
–117th & 5th
Overheard by: robin b
JAP: It’s not like I don’t like his parties, I just don’t fit in. Hello! I’m white!
–8th St & 5th Ave
Black guy: Well I have black friends, but they just don’t understand. You know what I’m sayin’? Certain races, dog.
–LIRR
Overheard by: Jess McGins
Ghetto girl: What was these two white bitches doing in Harlem at 2:30 in the morning? You know how white they was? They so white they names was Ashley and Haley. That’s how white they was!
–Uptown 5 train
Midwestern tourist points to a black guy and says, to his tween daughter: You see that guy over there? You see how he’s a different color than you? You see that sometimes in big cities.
–Downtown 6 train
Overheard by: Gwen
Black girl to black friend: Yo, man, you’re acting like a black person.
–N train, Ditmars Blvd, Queens
Juicer: Oh, shit! We got customers in the store! We gotta stop acting so black!
–Jamba Juice, University Place
Frustrated woman, who has been trying in vain to hail a cab: What am I, black?
–21st & 6th
Black girl to black friend: We never gonna get a cab unless we start hangin’ with some white folks.
–Orchard & Houston
Overheard by: white folk
Teenage girl: But Bob Dylan is Jewish. That’s kind of black.
–Upper West Side
Black girl: Why we gotta be black all the time? Why can’t we be white for two minutes?
–Wendy’s, W 34th St
JAP: I hate being white!
–66th & Broadway
White teen girl: Now I know what it feels like to be a minority.
–Chinatown
White woman to black woman: I feel like I understand the black struggle because I feel I was black in a past life.
–Penn Station
Thug on cell: Black people like catfish also, nigga!
–110th & Broadway
Overheard by: Mappy and Chocolate
Ghetto girl at crosswalk: Ooh, lil’ white man tells me to walk, so I’m walkin’!
–Times Square
Overheard by: bully
Guy: Dude, look at their Board of Health certificate on the wall there. It’s brown. No, it’s dirty!
Girl: Oh my God, that’s so filthy. What’s that on top there? [walks over] Jesus Christ, it’s a cockroach!
–Chinese restaurant, Flatbush & Dekalb, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Lunch Special
Boyfriend: Oooh, you look pretty in that dress.
Girlfriend: You’re revolting. Don’t touch me.
Queer buddy: Jeremy, this is your stop. Penn Station. Get out.
Boyfriend: No it isn’t. This is 96th Street.
Girlfriend: Do you have any idea how much I hate you? Stop touching me.
–Downtown A train
Overheard by: Shane
Little English girl: Where are we now, Mummy?
English Mummy: We’re in New York, in America.
Little English girl: [sigh] We’re still in America?
–Union Square East
Overheard by: Manhattman