College guy: You could always just become a prostitute.
College girl: That's exactly what I want to do with my degree. I've always wanted to be a whore.
–47th St
College guy: You could always just become a prostitute.
College girl: That's exactly what I want to do with my degree. I've always wanted to be a whore.
–47th St
Kid to another: And then, when you're 45, we can be tour guides.
–West Village
Overheard by: of bugle be uncouth
Tour guide: This tour will be in English, we have tour pamphlets in several other languages. If you are a non English speaking passenger, this announcement is of no use to you.
–Circle Line Harbor Lights Cruise
Overheard by: Trixie
Overexcited bespectacled tour guide leader to group of uninterested parents: So! That's the great thing, you know, about this school, is that it's not just you. It's the city, and the students, and the people, and the tourists, and… (starts to run out of things to say) the homeless people, and the squirrels… and pigeons! So, you see, it's not ever just you!
–Bobst Library, NYU
Tour guide on bus: Now over here we have Trump Towers. Donald is not in the building today, as he is out of country awaiting the birth of his next wife.
–Trump Towers
Cute Asian girl: I feel like I'm in high school again, except the person I'm dating is female and a really good kisser, and the guy I'm plotting to seduce is my professor. What's wrong with my life?
Friend: I think you need to either learn to live without penis, or realize that kissing men isn't scary.
Cute Asian girl: Kissing women is scary too! But I happen to really enjoy kissing Christina.
Friend: Okay, so if you want to do your professor so badly, don't you think he might be a good kisser too?
Cute Asian girl: There are so many things you can do with a guy that don't involve kissing…
Friend: Again… Get over penis or start kissing men!
Cute Asian girl: It isn't that simple!
–Uptown 2 Train
Girl to calculus teacher: I'm so confused.
Calculus teacher: Me too…
–St. Joseph Hill
Overheard by: Cat
Overweight geeky lunatic protester: The perpetual battery will last longer than any of us! The perpetual battery is the answer to all of our energy problems! It will draw its power from the very vacuum of space!
–Union Square South
Overheard by: Percival
Crazy old guy with beard and hat with lots of buttons: Where is the moon? Where is the moon, where is the galaxy? Have you ever seen Men in Black? It's all about the galaxy. The earth is beneath Columbus Circle. The moon is at 64th and Central Park West. If you had to suspend reality, how would you do it?
–Uptown 2 Train
Overheard by: Jingles
Professor: Has anybody ever seen a solar eclipse? Anybody, anybody? (silence) No? Well, maybe we were all inside on Facebook when it happened…
–St. John's University, Staten Island
Overheard by: Andrea
Visiting professor, explaining "word salad": Cream cheese to the moon mother, fuckers!
–Columbia University
Overheard by: Molly Moo
Obviously sober guy: I know Vikings eat ham, but what about Saturn?
–Rotating Cube Sculpture, Astor Place
Blonde: You cannot eat in space! It sucks you in.
–Union Square
Crazy bag man with hat full of buttons: Where's the moon, where's the moon? If the globe on Columbus Cirlce is the earth, the moon is on 63rd Street West. That is a test of spatial ree-al-uh-tee. How well did you do?
–Uptown 3 Train, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Les Izzmore
Girl with headphones: Olivia? She’s a whore!…and she’s the most important person at school.
–Grand St. & West Broadway
Overheard by: John Kuramoto
Student #1: Next question.
Student #2: Of the Federalist writers, who was the most suspicious of majority rule?
Student #1: Hamilton, right? He had the toughest stand on public rule.
Student #3: Wasn’t so tough against Raymond Burr.
Student #2: What?
Student #3: You know. The dude who shot him.
Student #1: Aaron. Aaron Burr. Dumb fuck.
–4 train
Overheard by: Terence
Professor: I have nothing against horse rapists, generally speaking.
–New School University
Overheard by: Evan Gilmer
Psychology professor: Chocolate may make you feel good, but cocaine will make you feel a lot better!
–Barnard College
Elderly history professor: I'm not sure of the consequences of what I'm saying, but I'm sure it's terribly important.
–Pratt Institute
Serious professor, on Freud: What's the matter, Anne, are you thinking about penis envy?
–Classroom, Hunter College
Overheard by: Rara
Bearded professor: He drew an eye on the bird and asked me "do you know what this means?" (short pause) "I swallow." What do you say to that?
–94th St & Broadway
Overheard by: DI
Elderly professor: You two ladies in the back want to cut the bullshit and listen to my brilliance?
–Tisch School of the Arts
Overheard by: Bruce Lee
Female student on cell: We don't know anything until we know something.
–Columbia University
Balding middle aged man guiding middle aged woman down stairs: Step, step, step, step. Flat, flat, flat, flat. Step…
–Columbia
Yoga instructor to skinny college girl: Turn your head to the left. Turn your head to the left. The left. The left. The left. Your other left. I know you go to Columbia.
–Bikram Yoga, Harlem
Overcaffinated Columbia freshman girl to another: What do you mean your sociology textbook ate King Lear?
–Carman Hall, Columbia University
Overheard by: that would make it difficult to finish either reading
Seven-year old boy to bookseller: Do you have any books on crop circles in this library?
–Barnes & Noble
Overheard by: Amused bookseller a few feet away
Man to another: Don't you know? All those tunnels in Afghanistan run into the pyramids in Gaza! If I was President there would be one less pyramid.
–Soup Kitchen, Midtown
Overheard by: John Gordon
Gentleman on train: You know why they invented daylight savings, don't you? It's because of Halloween, a lot of congressmen wanted kids to have an extra hour to go trick or treating. That's why we have daylight savings.
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Annie
Elderly professor: Fewer chairs, less chalk every week. It's a conspiracy!
–Pratt Institute
Overheard by: Denali