Douglas Stuart > Quotes

“She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Sadness made for a better houseguest; at least it was quiet, reliable, consistent.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Shug had seen it before, those with least to give always gave the most.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good. Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn't do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“The sun was not yet fully overhead in the sky, and everything beautiful was all already ruined.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“Flames are not just the end, they are also the beginning. For everything that you have destroyed can be rebuilt. From your own ashes you can grow again.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Shuggie heard the nurse say to a male attendant that she thought for sure Agnes was a working girl. “She is not,” said Shuggie, quite proudly. “My mother has never worked a day in her life. She’s far too good-looking for that.” The matted mink coat gave her an air of superiority, and her black strappy heels clacked out a slurred beat on the long marble hallway.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Mungo’s capacity for love frustrated her. His loving wasn’t selflessness; he simply couldn’t help it. Mo-Maw needed so little and he produced too much, so that it all seemed a horrible waste. It was a harvest no one had seeded, and it blossomed from a vine no one had tended. It should have withered years ago, like hers had, like Hamish’s had. Yet Mungo had all this love to give and it lay about him like ripened fruit and nobody bothered to gather it up.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“It was a funny thing to be a disappointment because you were honest and assumed others might be too. The games people played made his head hurt.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“James sat forward and kissed him. It was all so familiar now. They had moved beyond the clumsy petting and munching. Mungo would stop frequently to apologize, he felt so inept, and James would cradle his face and guide Mungo’s lips back to his. Now their kisses were soft and tender and offered without the fear of refusal. A kiss lasted hours. They lay with their mouths together and Mungo cupped his nose in the divot of James’s cheek, and then they led each other in a silent ramble, one would change the direction and the other would follow, over and over until an arm went dead, or the microwave pinged. A hand might slip under a T-shirt but it never dared to do anything else. Mungo knew he wanted to spend his life doing this, just kissing this one boy. There was no need to rush.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“Rain was a natural state of Glasgow. It kept the grass green and the people pale and bronchial.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“It was clear now: nobody would get to be made brand new.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Here was yet another person telling him what he needed, how he should act, the person he should be. Another person who didn't think he was enough just as he was.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“He had long perfected the art of staring through people, leaving conversations to follow his daydreams through the back of their heads and out any open window.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“He was Mo-Maw’s youngest son, but he was also her confidant, her lady’s maid, and errand boy. He was her one flattering mirror, and her teenage diary, her electric blanket, her doormat. He was her best pal, the dog she hardly walked, and her greatest romance. He was her cheer on a dreich morning, the only laughter in her audience. Jodie shunted him again but Mungo only grumbled and curled tighter around her. Her brother was her mother’s minor moon, her warmest sun, and at the exact same time, a tiny satellite that she had forgotten about. He would orbit her for an eternity, even as she, and then he, broke into bits.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“There were rows of teeth marks on the windowsill, perfect little half-moons of anxiety.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“She’d looked as happy as he could ever remember, and he was surprised how this hurt. It was all for the red-headed man. He had done what Shuggie had been unable to do.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“The morning light was the colour of too-milky tea. It snuck into the bedsit like a sly ghost, crossing the carpet and inching slowly up his bare legs.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Mungo pulled his finger off the rusted nail. “I’m glad you are fixed, James. You’ve worked hard to get better. You deserve it.” “I’m not fixed, Mungo. Ah’m just a liar.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“But how come Morrissey didnae think there was panic on the streets of Glasgow? There’s plenty of fuckin’ panic here.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“He hadn’t known that the sky could hold so many hues – or he hadn’t paid it any mind before. Did anyone in Glasgow look up?”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“am in flames, yet I do not burn.” He wiped the spit from the corners of his mouth. “That’s what Saint Agnes had to teach us. How even in the darkness there is still hope.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“As I reached out for help, everyone shrank back from me; they pulled away from fear that the fire would return”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“It was a nothing that felt like an everything.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“The rubber tip had worn away from around the right heel, and although she had coloured the shoe in with an old black bingo marker, the sharp metal nail scraped the floor with the screech of hard times.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“It was good to put your weight on someone else, even if it was just for a short while.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“Cheer up. I love you, Mungo Hamilton.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“dunno. I think it’s what all alkies want anyways.” She shivered. “To die, I mean. Some are just taking the slow road to it.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Without questioning it, Mungo sat up in the bed and oriented himself to lie beside James. He pulled the boy on to his chest and felt the crumpled wetness of his face. He held him, just like Jodie would hold him, and let him remember his mother. It was good to put your weight on someone else, even if it was just for a short while.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“The pictures aroused him. Sometimes – when Jodie was in bed, and Hamish was sleeping at Sammy-Jo’s – he would take his brother’s stiff magazine full of buttery soft women. He liked the spreads with men in them the best and so he folded the page, turned the women to the back, and gave them a little rest.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo