On the Subway

Guy #1: You do such dumb shit.
Guy #2: I do not.
Guy #1: Well, what about that E-trades tattoo on your leg?
Guy #2: I’m hardcore!

–1 train

Chick: Sell-out by day…
Suit: Shut up, okay? Whatever pays the bills.

–CBGBs, The Bowery

Overheard by: Sarah Royal

Drunk guy on cell: Dude, that’s crap, you gotta live hardcore!

–Williamsburg

Overheard by: Kate Elizabeth

Teen girl: Man this sucks. Where are all the punks?

–8th & Broadway

Overheard by: Mary

Chick: Darryl doesn’t even know what hardcore is, first off. He was all, “What, is that like some kind of porn?”.

–2nd & A

Overheard by: Kira

Punk girl: Fight bureaucracy!
Suit: You’re not the boss of me.

–Leonard between Broadway & Church

Overheard by: Lakini Malich

Big black guy #1: Yo, does anybody know where we get off to go uptown?
White passenger: The next stop.
Big back guy #1: Yo, everyone shut up and listen to the white nigga! He’s givin’ us directions!
Big black guy #2: Ain’t no such thing as a white nigga, fool!

–F Train

Teenager: Dude, my sister is always stealing her friends’ books, but like, sometimes no one has the book she wants, how much easier would it be if there was like, a Blockbuster, but for books.

–Blockbuster

Girlfriend to boyfriend: Did you bring something to read on the train? I’m trying to decide if I want to talk to you, sleep, or read my book.

–A Train

Overheard by: The Green Cat

Teenage girl: I need Romeo and Juliet. But do you have any with, like, the English on one side and Shakespeare on the other?

–Barnes & Noble, Union Square

Spoiled colleg girl to friend: My mom really wants me to get a nice big tote because she’s really worried about how I’m going to carry all my books. But I’m, like, worried if I’m even going to read my books.

–Outside Bloomingdale’s Dressing Room

Chick: So they called him up on stage, and they were like: "We want to bestow this honor upon you." And he was like: "It is indeed an honor, an honor indeed." And I’m all like: "Come on, like, I mean, seriously, like, who talks like that? Can’t you take it down a notch! Don’t you read US Weekly or anything?

–Starbucks, Woolworth Building

NYU girl to male friend: There’s almost something poetic about it, you know? Like, the 20-year-old Catholic virgin from Connecticut losing it to the older Ecuadorian lothario? Hell, I should just write a book about my life.

–NYU Dining Hall

Mom: I am telling you, you have to stop chewing your toothbrush to pieces… And now you are on to razors! Your stomach is going to explode like Anna’s.
20-ish daughter: That’s because Anna eats pussy.
Mom, smacking daughter on the head: Well, the next stop is Dyckman. Do you want to get out there and have your stomach explode, too?

–1 train, 207th St

American girl: Yeah, the subway runs express out of Astoria and local into Astoria. It wouldn’t make sense any other way. See all the people on the train?
German guy: Why would it only run express one way?
American girl: You’re not from here, I don’t expect you to understand.

–N train

Dude #1: Lots of people tell me I’m the gayest straight man they know.
Dude #2: Mmmm… No, I know a gayer straight guy than you.

–F station, Bergen St

Overheard by: Rose Fox

Man: All I’m saying is that if Jesus was beautiful on the inside, he was beautiful on the outside, so I know he had ladies looking at him.
Bimbette #1: Well, I know everything began in Africa.
Bimbette #2: That’s right. You know they have the indentation in Africa where the devil landed? They built a church over it to try to make it holy. I saw it on The Exorcist.

–4 train

Three-year-old tripping as train leaves platform: Jesus Christ!
Mother: Derek! … Did you learn that from church, or from when Mommy gets mad at Daddy?

–B train

Overheard by: Mike DS

Little boy watching a man: What the fuck?
Mother, reading a newspaper: You better watch your mouth today, little boy!
Little boy: But mommy, he keeps banging his head on the pole!
Mother, watching the man: What the fuck?

–F Train

Overheard by: It looked painful.