Guy on cell: There was Laura Ingalls and the mean one… What was her name?
Passerby: Nellie!
–Entrance, A Train
Overheard by: TRUE
Guy on cell: There was Laura Ingalls and the mean one… What was her name?
Passerby: Nellie!
–Entrance, A Train
Overheard by: TRUE
Guy: Yeah, he has this obsession with white weasels. It’s just very New York, you know?
–23rd & 8th
Overheard by: Kate
White Girl: I’m leaving this city, it’s all just bed bugs and bad drugs.
–Queensboro Plaza
Overheard by: Zach
Prudish waitress, to another: In New York, you just come to expect cock-on-cock, ass-on-ass talk… In DC, you don’t.
–1 Train
Student to friend: You play the paranoid freak, I will play the egomaniac. We will call it "New York".
–49th & 1st
Thug #1 to Thug #2, while observing typical, plain, Midwest vacationing family getting off a tour bus: Get back on that bus! This New York! You can’t handle this shit! [Teenage kids smile. The father, absolutely horrified, grabs the kids and throws them back on the bus.]
–42nd St & 5th Ave
Overheard by: Bunk Moreland
NYU girl: Wait, do you live with Paul?
NYU guy: Uh, yeah.
NYU girl: Oh. I don’t know who that is.
–Union Square
Overheard by: Nick M.
Businessman #1: Have you ever rode on the subway before?
Businessman #2: Yeah, last time I was here, we took it to a Yankee game. I think they were playing that other New York team, the Rangers.
–6 Train
Overheard by: Stef
Red-dressed hipster chick at the bloc party concert: Bloc party?
Hipster boyfriend: Yeah, it’s the band name, stupid.
Red-dressed hipster chick at the bloc party concert: Why don’t they just call it pool party? …I mean we’re in an effing pool!
–McCarran Pool, Brooklyn
Blonde: You know what I just learned? G-E-O-R-G isn’t pronounced ‘George’ — it’s pronounced ‘gay-something.’
–49th & Broadway
Overheard by: It’s too cold for stupidity
Fag hag to queer pal: It’s like, we’re like… cotillion-izing!
–Columbia University
Overheard by: jaded library dweller
Ghetto chick: Yo, he is datin’ Sheryl now. I told him, ‘Tell me when you kiss her.’ He was all, ‘Why?’ so I said, ‘So I know not to kiss her!’ I’m bilingual, yo.
–L train, 3rd Ave stop
Overheard by: katiebeans
Loud woman: That is ‘conniving’ with a capital ‘K’!
–St. Mark’s & 2nd Ave
Angry wife to husband: You are so patronistic. I seriously can’t stand how fucking patronistic you are.
–56th & 5th
15-year-old girl to group of friends: I be takin’ AP English this year, yo. I the only one in that motherfucker that don’t be lookin’ like they be deliverin’ yo’ egg rolls when they ain’ts in school an’ shit.
–210th St & Bainbridge Ave
Overheard by: gutterlush
Angry woman to friend: I have a contention with the way people pronounce my daughter’s name. I did not name my daughter ‘Lady Nasty’! I named my baby girl ‘La Dynasty.’
–JFK
Overheard by: The REAL Lady Nasty
Professor: Old people will sign anything.
–Brooklyn College
Professor: What do you guys think of this poster? It annoys me. I would wear this on a t-shirt just to annoy people.
–Pratt Institute
Sociology professor: New York is a megalopolis, while Boston is only a metropolis, although Bostonites would argue that… Bostonites… Bostoners… Bostonians? Pshhh, whatever.
–Fordham University
Overheard by: Sromeo
Philosophy professor, drawing: Here is the world… Here are some birds… And people. Here’s someone… Here’s someone hitting someone with an ax. Some people do axings… Some people don’t.
–Fordham University
Overheard by: no axings!
Old professor with French accent: Hot climate is associated in this book with passion or sex. I think that I, for example, really never did have sex in a sub-zero temperature.
–NYU Cantor Film Center
Overheard by: suddenly surrounded by students’ awkward snickers
Sociology professor: I’ll tell you a story that most people laugh hysterically at, but it actually makes me really sad… Kind of like Napoleon Dynamite.
–Fordham University
Overheard by: Sromeo
Tourist #1: This is us.
Tourist #2: You sure?
Tourist #1: Yup, Cay-null Street.
–N train, Canal St station
Overheard by: sara n.
Chick: Hey, how’s it going?
Dude: Hey, wassup?
Chick: Not much. It’s so weird to see you outside.
Dude: I know. I told you I lived near you.
Chick: Oh, yeah. I remember now.
Dude: What are you doing here?
Chick: Heard the coffee here is pretty famous.
Dude: Yeah, it is.
Chick: Anyways, I gotta go, but do you even know my name?
Dude: No…
Chick: What? I know yours. Tony, right?
Dude: No. I’m Dennis.
Chick: Oh, shit. Okay, Dennis. I’m Sonia. Anyways, gotta go. I will see you again, okay?
Dude: Alright. Bye.
Chick: Bye.
–Central Park
Middle-aged black woman: William Shatner should run for president or governor or mayor or something… He’s got the charisma.
–Staten Island Ferry snack bar
Overheard by: Stephanie
Hobo spinning in circles: ‘Bout time we got some poontang in the White House! There’s a first time for everything!
–117th & Broadway
Overheard by: Vicksburg
Thug, watching Elliot Spitzer and Chuck Schumer drive by: Who da fuck these niggas?
–Super Bowl Parade
Overheard by: No idea
Scholar: I’m voting for Osama Barack.
–F train
Overheard by: Terrorized
Conductor: Grand Central Station. Two and Three trains across the platform. Change here for the Seven, A, C, E, and shuttle to Times Square. Vote Obama.
–1 train, Grand Central
Drunk guido during post-Super Bowl rioting: I mean, who cares who the next president is after this?
–52nd & 2nd
Overheard by: NCS
