Top 160 Douglas Stuart Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “I don’t know.” It fell out of him unexpectedly, almost like a loose fart, and he regretted it instantly. His face flushed, and his eyes darted to her. She was his best chance at being a normal boy, and already he had ruined it.”

— Douglas Stuart

102. “When the blow came it wasn’t to the stomach as he had expected. Hamish reached out and wrenched his brother’s nose. It was a dirty manoeuvre left over from their boyhood and Mungo, who was always prone to nosebleeds, began to gush. Bright tears filled his eyes but he wouldn’t cry. He had learned not to give his brother the satisfaction. Hamish liked tears; if you showed any to him, he went out hunting for more.”

— Douglas Stuart

103. “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

104. “Agnes kissed him then. Eugene, solid and true. His lips were hard but tasted sweet.”

— Douglas Stuart

105. “How come ye don’t have a daddy?” His voice was already deep like a man’s. “I d-do,” Shuggie stuttered. Gerbil smiled. “Where is he then?” This Shuggie didn’t know. He had heard he was a whoremaster.”

— Douglas Stuart

106. “The red-headed ox was called Eugene. It was a good name, both old-fashioned and plain. It was the name mothers chose for first born sons, the ones that were to be solid and true, mother’s pride but not her joy.”

— Douglas Stuart

107. “That morning she had tilted her head forward and asked Catherine what she thought of her new mascara. The mascara looked too heavy for her eyelids, like she was on the edge of sudden sleep. Now, as the taxi pulled out into the main road, Agnes made a show of looking back and waving mournfully through the rear window with a long, heavy blink. She thought it was a cinematic touch, like she was the star of her own matinee.”

— Douglas Stuart

108. “Wullie and Shuggie were sitting at the round dining table eating soft eggs and soldiers. Sixty years apart, they were huddled together in the far corner like old drinking pals. Leek was upended on the settee, his bare legs up and over the back, a sketchbook in hand. When he saw his mother, he got up very quietly and passed her with a polite nod, like a stranger in the street.”

— Douglas Stuart

109. “Agnes’s face was very thickly made up, and it looked to Shuggie like the paint had been layered over several other faces she had forgotten to take off first. The boy followed her at a discreet distance, stopping now and then to gather up things that fell from the pocket of her matted mink coat.”

— Douglas Stuart

110. “Something shook loose inside him, as if the old glue that was gumming his joints together had failed.”

— Douglas Stuart

111. “The boy was engrossed, his face in shadow, and he looked like he was playing with small toy horses that could have easily been wooden toys, military or Trojan. Shuggie knew what they really were, that they were the scented dolls, bright and cheerful and for little girls. They were the pretty ponies, and Leek had known. Leek had always known.”

— Douglas Stuart

112. “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

113. “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

114. “From where Eugene watched him, he looked like a half-shut penknife, a thing that should be sharp and useful, that was instead closed and waiting and rusting.”

— Douglas Stuart

115. “Jodie liked Poor-Wee-Chickie. She had endless patience for the lonely. But Mungo was wary of him; even though he knew better, he still believed the untrue things they said about the bachelor.”

— Douglas Stuart

116. “If they missed, then it was a twenty-foot plummet to the ground. But they flew across the night sky like fearless angels, their tracksuits flapping behind them like flightless wings.”

— Douglas Stuart

117. “Jodie reached her hand out to push his hair away and he stepped away from her. He could look at Jodie, but he wouldn’t let her touch him again. If Jodie, of all people, could not love him, all of him, perhaps he could not be loved.”

— Douglas Stuart

118. “It was a relief in the same way old people enjoyed having a child in the room, because it gave them something to fuss over when they had nothing left to say to each other.”

— Douglas Stuart

119. “The boy was heartbroken to watch them take joy in her misery. He died for the fear she might think he was now one of them, laughing down the phone at her. He thought about her wrists and the blood on the tea towels, and like a big baby he cried from frustration right there in front of them.”

— Douglas Stuart

120. “Before you cut yourself, you must have phoned him and told him to come get Shuggie. It all happened that fast. I couldn’t help you and help Shuggie.” Leek exhaled upwards, and his fringe rippled like a curtain in an open window. “It’s too much, Mammy. I can’t be the one to save everybody all the time.”

— Douglas Stuart

121. “She’s never going to get off the drink.” Shuggie was staring into the swampy broth. “She might. I just have to try harder to help her.”

— Douglas Stuart

122. “Mo-Maw smiled wanly before her eyes glazed over and filled with a faraway look. It was the look that the melancholy singers got at Hogmanay; the old men who gathered in corners and burst into mournful song, ruining good spirits, making old women cry.”

— Douglas Stuart

123. “She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good.”

— Douglas Stuart

124. “Donald Jnr didn’t have to pay digs in to his mother. He didn’t have to feel grateful or guilty for anything.”

— Douglas Stuart

125. “This time, instead of the choking sourness, something bubbled inside him like yellow sunshine.”

— Douglas Stuart

126. “At half past ten her hair and her make-up were already done, and although she wasn’t leaving the house she put on her low-cut jumper and a fitted grey skirt. She sat drinking the dregs of old lager and wondering where exactly her boy was hiding from his childhood.”

— Douglas Stuart

127. “It gave me that much pleasure just to be proud of you.”

— Douglas Stuart

128. “The others tittered and went about ransacking the place with a sense of relief. There was nothing more shameful than being a poofter; powerless, soft as a woman.”

— Douglas Stuart

129. “She wondered what lay ahead for her baby brother. What woman would love him now? She hoped for someone who would be grateful for his good looks and reticent ways. Someone who would feel blessed by his quiet attention, who would take all his love and keep it safe. There would be girls who would want to mother him forever, who’d be reduced by the helpless dip of his eyes into some primitive need to cook and clean and care for him.”

— Douglas Stuart

130. “To Shuggie, the aunties who came to visit were often worse. It was like Agnes’s worse qualities went out and found a friend.”

— Douglas Stuart

131. “He liked to roam alone in the darkness, getting a good look at the underbelly. Out came the characters shellacked by the grey city, years of drink and rain and hope holding them in place. His living was made by moving people, but his favourite pastime was watching them.”

— Douglas Stuart

132. “Shuggie’s head pulled back on his neck in disgust. “Then who will look after her?” “Well. She’ll have to look after herself.” “Then how will she ever get better?”

— Douglas Stuart

133. “Mungo took off his trainers and waded thigh-deep into the frigid loch. The cold made a castrato out of him; it made him want to sing. Except for the gentle lapping and the occasional swarm of midges, the loch was tranquil. Under the clear sky, the surface was shiny as a looking glass. Mungo wriggled his toes and could see them clearly beneath the water. Before him lay more emptiness than he had ever known.”

— Douglas Stuart

134. “Mungo was almost at the guttering when he saw the boy fall. The metal must have been wetter than he had thought, and he slipped off the high arm as gracelessly as a bag of flour falling off a shelf.”

— Douglas Stuart

135. “He locked the door that lay behind his eyes and walked away, leaving the body, the plaster dust, the flask of cold tea, and the angry gaffer behind.”

— Douglas Stuart

136. “That’s her away. It was what you said when you disposed of something.”

— Douglas Stuart

137. “Somebody here loved this other little boy.”

— Douglas Stuart

138. “Hamish was far from Glasgow and the glare of the Protestant boys who expected so much from him, and the rest of the scheme who expected so little.”

— Douglas Stuart

139. “Mo-Maw was only a few inches taller than her eldest child even then, but she’d strung him up like a butcher’s chicken.”

— Douglas Stuart

140. “If he got this and she got that, then what would they themselves do without? It was a mother’s math.”

— Douglas Stuart

141. “A murdered young girl, and the best photo her family could provide was the extra copies she had done for her monthly transit pass.”

— Douglas Stuart

142. “With a heavy blink Agnes drew her eyes over the officious woman. The end of her nose was pitted like a small strawberry.”

— Douglas Stuart

143. “Has he ever touched you, Shuggie? Father Barry, that is.”

— Douglas Stuart

144. “Mungo didn’t know how to respond to that. His mother was like a carnival magician, she was forever working some sleight of hand, sucking in her paunch, or turning different faces to these men. Jodie had said it was like how McCallum’s the baker kept turning their old wedding cakes in their window when the icing had yellowed in the sunlight. By the time some poor punter sliced into the fruit cake, it’d be too late to complain that it was claggy and unappetizing and soaked in rank old booze.”

— Douglas Stuart

145. “Mungo bent forward and lifted his sister off her feet. He wore her like a backpack and carried her, giggling, through to the narrow kitchenette. He dropped her in front of the electric cooker. “Feed me, woman.” Jodie extended two fingers and jabbed upwards into his ribs. “That shite doesn’t suit you. So don’t try it. Haaah-ha.”

— Douglas Stuart

146. “She was sobering up. She stared silently out the window, trying not to think of the trail of fatherless children and the childrenless father they were leaving in their wake. In her mind it looked like a trail of viscous, salty tears being dragged along behind the black hack. The excitement had left her by then.”

— Douglas Stuart

147. “They looked stiff, as though they had come from chapel, but wet-eyed, like they had taken too much Communion wine.”

— Douglas Stuart

148. “As girls, they had clung to one another like a string of pearls and sang at the top of their voices all the way down Sauchiehall Street.”

— Douglas Stuart

149. “When are you coming home?” “Look, don’t upset yourself. Doesn’t Mammy deserve a party? It’s been that long, Hugh.” Her voice trailed off. “I’ve been promised that many parties in my day. Why are you trying to ruin my party.” She was repeating herself now. “Mammy, I’m scared. Where are you?” “I’m up at Anna O’Hanna’s. Away to your bed, and I’ll see you when I get home.” This part was ominously vague. The line went dead, and it took him a while to replace the receiver.”

— Douglas Stuart

150. “So many lives were happening only two miles away from his and they all seemed brighter than his own.”

— Douglas Stuart