On the Subway

Cowboy wearing a Florida Rebel flag belt buckle: You should go back to your own country, or learn to speak English!
Girl leaving train: Have fun in the Bronx, cowboy!

–D Train

Woman: Hey, who's the kid?
Friend: Oh, he's coming with me for “Take Your Kid to Work Day.”
Woman: I didn't know you had a son.
Friend: I don't. This is my nephew. He was stealing money from my purse, so I'm gonna make his life hell for a day.
15-year-old (sarcastically): Yeah, because any day I get to miss school is total hell for me.
Friend: Shut your hole or I'll leave you for the hobos!

–F Train

Pretty lady: Are you telling me that the all the times you've ever been to New York, you've never been to a museum?
Foreigner: No.
Pretty lady: What the hell is wrong with you? How do you spend your time in the city?
Foreigner: Macy's and Bloomingdale's!

–6 Train

Chick #1: We should go to Montreal some time.
Chick #2: My friend was telling me about this trip he took to Canada. It was like seven hours on the Long Island Rail Road.

–N Train

Guy #1: They're very…urgent.
Guy #2: Very ADD. Very ADHD.
Guy #1: Very OCD.
Guy #2: Very ASAP. Like, Ay-SAP.
Guy #1: Coked up!

–R Train

Overheard by: Eyeteeth

Ghetto woman: She raped a 12-year-old boy?
Ghetto man: Yeah, she just opened the door and grabbed him and started fucking him.
Ghetto woman: Damn, that nigga probably went back and told all the Boy Scouts!

–6 Train

Overheard by: Skyler Fox

Woman on cell: Shut up! Shut up! I'm going to punch you in the face! I love you.

–A Bus

Spanish chick: Two things can't happen tonight. One, I can't get in a fight tonight. Two, I can't see nobody I don't like.

–5th Ave & 11th St, Park Slope

Overheard by: Matthew K. Johnson

Homeless, burnt-out surfer lady: Then I looked up, and this cunt is about to hit me like a man!

–139th & Broadway

Overheard by: Jesse Cromer

Guy to girl: The next time your parents chuckle at my misfortunes, I'm gonna kick 'em in the nuts. I'm gonna kill 'em!

–20th St & 5th Ave, Brooklyn

Jamaican conductor over PA: Don't move between cars while the train is in motion. I don't want to have to knock you the fuck out.

–1 Train

Overheard by: Got Knocked Out

Serious hipster girl: There is a nine-out-of-ten percent chance she won't call, but there is a one percent chance she will.

–L Train

Overheard by: Kansas

Grad student: You slept with him? This is not a good data-point.

–Fayerweather Hall, Columbia University

Overheard by: Ladle

Serious 20-something: You know pi? Like 3.14? You could shave the symbol into your pubes and you'd have hair pi.

–Coffe Bar Lounge

Student: Math chicks aren't the most glorious specimens of femininity.

–Shake Shack

Overheard by: Mary Elizabeth

Young man to friend: If you add it up, it's a lot of money. But when you do the math, it's not really that much money.

–Staten Island Ferry Terminal

Overheard by: Joy

Older cousin to younger cousin: How are you going to be rich if you don't like math? Rich people are good at math. They have to count their money.

–Stuyvesant Square

Overheard by: Peanut

Girl complaining to math teacher: No, you don't understand. I can't multiply past six.

–Marymount Manhattan College

Overheard by: Austin G.

Chipper, young, possibly gay guy with afro to random woman, after switching seats and moving closer: Sorry to bother you, but I just had to tell you this. I have this book of all these, like, African kings and queens and princesses and stuff. And I just had to tell you that you look just like one of the African queens in it. Like, just like her! Oh, I wish I had the book with me! I would show her to you.

–Q Train

Overheard by: katiek

Super-irate hippie chick in braids, yelling on cell: Thanks to you, everyone thinks I'm a fucking freak. Everyone looks at me like I'm fucking Pearl from the fucking Scarlet Letter!

–Court St & Bergen

Overheard by: Siobhan

Young deli clerk on phone, in confidential tones: William Shakespeare! Shakespeare!

–4th Ave & Bergen St, Boerum Hill

Cockeyed old man in hat to Strand employee: Where are the regular books?

–Strand Bookstore, 12th St & Broadway

Annoying rich girl to friend: So I got a library card so I can read more, but then I realized that I don't like used things and I stopped going.

–Bookstore, 71st St & Lexington

Girl (outside of her AP English classroom): Wait…Huck Finn never had syphilis!

–Stuyvesant High School

Woman to friend helping her find a book: You don't have to worry about giving away the ending. I know what happens to those six million people.

–The Strand

Small boy: I want to go downtown!
Patient mother: We are going downtown.
Small boy: I want to go uptown!

–Downtown 1 Train

Overheard by: Rose Fox