Forget professional comedians and carefully crafted stage scripts. What great lines have you heard ordinary people say just offhand? I can think of a few.

A woman I know said this as she was coping with nonstop family drama: “I turn off my phone at night. If somebody’s dead, they’ll still be dead in the morning.”

”Maybe is my go-to word.” I heard somebody say that when talking about dealing with his son.

And I like this one: “I’m a nonpracticing atheist.”

The most spectacular mystery line was at a bank of telephone niches in a hotel—this was some years ago—where I overheard someone say (loudly and with exasperation), “Well, but did you get the dead skunks OUT of the bedroom?”

Topics: quotes, one-liners, overheard, throwaway lines, memorable words