Kids

Nine-year-old girl: Trick or treat! If you don’t have any candy, you can give my mom some liquor!

–Wine shop, Chelsea

Overheard by: Catherynne Valente

Cute chick on cell: Hello, Mom. I’m just calling to tell you I got a tattoo, and I’m telling you on your voicemail so I don’t have to hear any shit from you about it. Call me after you calm down. Bye.

–Canal & Lafayette

Overheard by: Big Larry

Mom and nine-year-old daughter are walking hand-in-hand.

Daughter, shrieking: No, Mommy, please don’t buy the razor! Anything but the razor, Mommy!

–74th & Broadway

Tween girl: My mother is probably going to shit on my head.

–Broadway & 67th

Overheard by: thaler

Hipster NYU dude: She’s not my mother anymore.

–14th St & 3rd Ave

Overheard by: yamutha

Girl to friend: I can't believe you broke a nail on your own ass hair!

–Church & Chambers

Three-year-old boy to another: I like you but I don't like your baby because your baby grabbed my hair.

–Central Park, Great Lawn

Girl: Oh, I'm so glad this is all working out. (gets up and sees her reflection) Fuck! Why didn't you tell me my hair looked like a dead beaver?

–Prince St Cafe

Overheard by: It DID

Black woman to infant held by her mother: Where did you get all of that hair? I want some of that hair. (pats her head) This ain't my hair, I could really use yours.

–Harlem Polling Station

Overheard by: Joe

Girl yelling into cell: He's not even hairy!

–Times Square

Overheard by: Well then why do they call him that?

Chick: I thought we were made for each other, but he's too bearded.

–113th St

Overheard by: Ursula & Winifred

Dad: Hey, you hear that? That’s someone on the giant piano. Let’s go up and see it.
Seven-year-old girl: Yes, someone clearly uneducated is on the piano.

–FAO Schwarz

Overheard by: CollegiateCutie

Mother: Be careful, sweetie, because there are criminals everywhere in New York!
Little girl: Look! There’s a taxi full of criminals!

–Outside Madison Square Garden

Overheard by: Annie Dechant

10-year-old girl in school uniform: Ew! You mean you'd still go through with it?
10-year-old boy in school uniform: Yeah! At least she'd still have a vagina!

–Park Ave & 79th St

Older gay guy on cell: In the 60s, you didn't need to have passion or talent to be an artist; you just needed to have a van, because no one else was going to haul your shitty art around.

–7th Ave & 14th St

Overheard by: Miss C

Girl reading sign at Frank Lloyd Wright museum: Oh… He was an architect!

–Guggenheim Museum

Overheard by: Antartic

Mom to little girl: If you look at too much art in one day, you'll turn into a statue.

–MoMA

Guy on phone: Yeah, she said she didn't think I would want to go, but why the fuck not? I'll go to a fucking museum if I fucking want to. I'll look at some paintings and shit.

–Downtown Brooklyn

Overheard by: Mark McLaughlin

12-year-old boy, looking at Picasso paintings: This is totally my thing, man, it's like free porn.

–MoMA

Little girl to mother: I don't wanna be a lawyer anymore, when I grow up I wanna be a cat!

–Chelsea

Woman to friend: I mean, he's just so anti-social! He has like 19 cats!

–Lafayette & Prince

Girl to friend: My cat is a flaming homosexual.

–34th & 5th

Girl: And so she says, "let's follow the cat!" So we do, and the cat leads us to a pile of heroin!

–Cafeteria, Barnard College

Four-year-old #1: Ice cream makes your head fall off.
Four-year-old #2: No, it doesn’t.
Four-year-old #1: It was just an expression, asshole.
Four-year-old #2, to his dog: Don’t let him pet you.

–Central Park

Overheard by: amused tourist

Aunt: Do you know what you are being?
Child: Yeah.
Aunt: Does it start with a b?
Child: Maybe.
Aunt: Your father calls me that all the time, you can say it…I give you permission.
Child: No.
Aunt: Is it a female dog?
Child: Yeah.
Aunt: Come, tell me…is it “bitch?”
Child: Yeah, I'm a being a bitch.

–Isabella's, 81st St

Overheard by: Gerald T Reiner Jr.

Little girl: Mommy! Mommy! How many times have I asked you for a brother?
Mother to friend: Yeah, she's been buggin' me about having a boy.
Little girl: Yeah! And we can name him David!
Mother: David? David? Hooooo, girl! Hell no!

–Staten Island Ferry