NYU girl #1: I mean, and she was like, and I was like, and like…
NYU girl #2: Yeah…
–Coles Gym, NYU
Overheard by: Currer Bell
NYU girl #1: I mean, and she was like, and I was like, and like…
NYU girl #2: Yeah…
–Coles Gym, NYU
Overheard by: Currer Bell
Professor: So what do we know about these debt notes?" (silence) So what do *I* know about these debt notes, that obviously you don't know?
–NYU Law School
Overheard by: Ames
Professor: My favorite words to hear are "just do nothing." My second favorites are "open bar."
–College of Mount Saint Vincent, Bronx
Environmental history professor: Look at some of the items on this menu from a hotel of Chicago Thanksgiving dinner from 1872: loin of buffalo, antelope steak in mushroom sauce, ham of bear, black tail deer, leg of mountain sheep, buffalo tongue… Miss Palin, your table is ready.
–Classroom, Fordham University
Overheard by: Martin Van Nostrand
Linguistics professor, about Spanish-speaking families who live in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods: The only English these people hear is from their landlords and social workers.
–NYU Silver Center
Overheard by: Latka Hero
NYU professor: So we're going to be walking, and you'll notice I walk pretty fast. But we're in New York, and you're supposed to walk like you know exactly where you're going in life and nothing is in your way. Because if you slow down you'll get mugged. (beat) It's dog eat dog, people.
–NYU Classroom
Russian literature professor: Oh my god, you just totally missed the point of Jesus!
–NYU Classroom
MTA conductor: Rector street is next. The next stop is rector street.
Old lady tourist to friend: Rector… Rector… Rectum.
–1 Train
Overheard by: Well, we’ve all thought it
Woman: …you know, he was much darker than the other kids who were really white, so he was called a nigger. He was dyslexic.
Man: Wha?
Woman: But he was a strong boy. One time when he was bitten by a dog, I came in to his room and he was lying there with blood on him. He didn’t scream or say a word…a very strong boy.
Man: What are you talking about?
–Times Square
Student #1: That’s hot.
Student #2: Did you actually just say that?
Teacher: Come on, leave her alone. She meant ‘hot’ with a ‘ph.’
–Convent of the Sacred Heart
Overheard by: hot with a ph
Six-year old girl: Mom! I want some triffles!
(tired mother ignores her)
Six-year old girl: Triffles, mom! Can I have some when we get home? Please, mom? I want triffles! Triffles, triffles, triffles!
Tired mother: What the hell is a triffle? I don't even know what those are.
Six-year old girl: Yeah. Me neither.
–Crown Heights
Overheard by: Now I really wanna know
Woman #1: Wow, those fingerless gloves are great! You look like you could get into a fistfight, but in a totally adorable way!
Woman #2: It would be the cutest, fuzziest, bluest fight ever!
–5th & 22nd
Overheard by: Rose Fox
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
Cute JAP talking about all the stuff she gets: I don't need a man, I have my mom.
–Rare View Bar
Overheard by: white guy
Blonde girl to male friend: Listen, John. Fifteen minutes, your mom. Fifteen minutes, your mom.
–R Train
Annoying 40-something new mom: A good mom always has a diaper in her pocket!
–Barnes & Noble, 18th & 5th
Overheard by: I Am McLovey
Coworker: I got a bootleg mother.
–Midtown
Window-shopping tourist to wife: Look, honey! It's the dress your mother wore when they buried her!
–Union Square
Overheard by: CJ
Guy: I go over to the house for Mother's Day and she yells at me for not calling her for Mother's Day like my brother did. So I go outside and call her from my cell and say "happy Mother's Day!" and she yells at me for being an idiot.
–37th & 7th
Black guy: Man, Asia and Africa is totally disinterconnected!
–E train
Guy on cell: She has no idea I’ve been on steroids all week!
–City Hall Park
Overheard by: Bria Dunham