Middle-aged woman: I think her name was something like… Something like Charlemagne.
Barnard girl: You mean Chante?
Middle-aged woman: I was close! I was close!
Barnard girl: Yeah, I think Charlemagne was someone completely different.
–Barnard College
Overheard by: Miss Bonaparte
Girl #1: If Rome was built in a day, I can definitely build a website in one day also…
Girl #2: The saying is “Rome wasn't built in a day.”
Girl #1: Are you sure? That kinda ruins my logic.
–NYU
Girl #1: If I was wearing a bikini right now, that’d be hot.
Girl #2: If I had a penis in me right now, that’d be hotter.
–Roseland Ballroom
Overheard by: gunstunna
College student: This is the best Barnes & Noble I've ever seen!
–Borders, Time Warner Center
Student: So, the author of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-low… Fuck it, we're calling him L-train.
–Eugene Lang College
Overheard by: Harker
Large woman with friends: Oh, girl, I got to tell you about this book I'm reading. It's off the hook! They're sending in this undercover agent, and I think it's his sister, but he's all getting ready to have sex with her!
–White Castle, 36th & 8th
Overheard by: Duncan Pflaster
Woman on phone: I was in Union Square, so I stopped in Barnes & Noble. (pause) Nigga, I can read!
–Union Square
Little British boy: Oh my goodness, dad, look! They have books on dating. How to Date? is probably like, "Don't take her to McDonald's!"
–Barnes & Noble
Overheard by: Laura
Tattooed artsy guy, putting hand on artsy Asian girl's shoulder: I read your book and really liked it… lotta pissing, huh?
–Mott & Prince
Girl: Wow, last night I was so drunk. I can’t believe that I got so
wasted off only a pint of gin. In first year I could drink like twice that amount and party all night.
Guy: So you were hardcore then?
Girl: Naw, I wasn’t hardcore, I was just an idiot.
–NYU A bus
Guy: Have you ever drank the worm?
Girl: Oh, hell yeah. And that’s hardcore ’cause I’m a vegetarian.
–McCabe’s Liquor Store, 3rd Avenue
Teen boy: Yo, I got the munchies, B…Yo, what happened to the guys with candy and shit? Shit was mad convenient.
–1 train
Overheard by: I. J. Meyers
20-something guy, reading cigarette pack: “Light” does not mean safer. It refers to taste. Lights wont help you quit smoking.
Friend: Uh, alright. Let me get a pack of ultra lights.
–Times Square
Overheard by: Jack Straw
Girl: If I made a sex doll that smelled like elk, he would totally do it!
–Queens
Middle-aged Latino: I've got barbie dolls!
–Brooklyn
Overheard by: Confabulation Nation
Newspaper vendor: Cause I have that multiple sneezing thing! I hate that crap! I'm like a bobble-head doll!
–96th St & Madison Ave
Overheard by: Galatea
Girl leaving nail salon: It looks like Malibu Barbie just threw up all over my feet.
–11th St & Broadway
Overheard by: Bill
Despondent little girl in coffee shop: Um, I don't play with the doll house that much because you said we're not supposed to play in the meditation room.
–Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
Woman #1: I watched the best movie last night!
Woman #2: Oh yeah? What was it?
Woman #1: It was called To Catch a Mockingbird.
Woman #2: Did you know they made a book from that movie?
–Q55 bus
Ghetto chick: Excuse me! Excuse me! What’s the name of the towers that got knocked down?
Incredulous passerby: Umm . . . The World Trade Center.
Ghetto chick to thug boyfriend: See! I told you it wasn’t none of that twin towers. You thinking of Lord of the Rings.
–Vesey St
