Mom, in Chinese: One bubble tea.
Daughter: Why do you know Chinese?
Mom: Why don’t you?
–Main St
Guy: So my friend from New Jersey just texted me…
Girl: Yeah?
Guy: Yeah, she’s pregnant and wants to me to be the godfather.
–NYU bus
Little girl: What is that?
Mom: An ornament on a branch.
Little girl: Why is it an ornament on a branch?
Mom: Because it is.
Little girl: Why is it because it is?
–St. Lukes Holiday Festival, Hudson & Christopher
Overheard by: nosey nancy
Tall girl: I think I saw his brother in the chorus of a show I saw for my job.
Short girl: Word.
Tall girl: Yeah.
Short girl: Yeah. There's four of them. And they're all beautiful. It's so not fair. I'm weird-looking and, according to my grandma, my brother looks like the love child of Jake Gyllenhaal and Sanjay Gupta.
Tall girl: And your parents are short Jews.
Short girl: I can't believe you remember that.
–Downtown 1 Train
Cute little four-year-old girl: Daddy, who was The Iceman?
Father, without hesitation: He was a serial killer.
Cute little four-year-old girl: Oh.
–Barnes & Noble
Girl: I have to pee sooooo bad!
Mother: You just went to the bathroom ten minutes ago.
Girl: But I have to pee again! Can you put something in my vagina to hold it up?
–M104 Bus
Mother, after mayor Bloomberg goes by: Was that Rudy?
Daughter: Giuliani? You really don't know what Rudy Giuliani looks like?
Mother: No.
Daughter: This is almost as bad as the time you said you don't know what Darfur is.
Mother: I still don't.
–Columbus Day Parade
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
Girl: Think you’ll be able to convince your parents to go see a movie or something over Christmas?
Guy: Not a chance. My parents are impossible to motivate to do anything.
Girl: Ah, I bet you could get them to at least try during the holidays.
Guy: I’m not kidding…They are completely exhausted by eating, sleeping, shitting, and working. That’s all they have energy for.
–Tompkins Square Park
Overheard by: BBW
Mother, to her kids: Now here’s what you do -you go into the store, give the receipt to the cashier, and buy something else.
[Kids leave.]Mother, to herself: You are not getting me a mop for mother’s day, no sir.
–6th Ave
Overheard by: J.R.
