Top 160 Douglas Stuart Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

103. “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

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. “It was hard at first to start moving again, to feel the music, to go to that other place in your head where you keep your confidence. It didn’t go together, the shuffling feet and the jangly limbs, but like a slow train it caught speed and soon he was flying again. He tried to tone down the big showy moves, the shaking hips and the big sweeping arms. But it was in him, and as it poured out, he found he was helpless to stop it.”

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

108. “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

109. “I do fight for her!” he said. “Mostly with herself, but it’s still a fight.”

— Douglas Stuart

110. “Jodie had the peculiar courage of a girl who never expected to be hit by a man – which was strange, because all three siblings had seen their mother suffer at the hands of her boyfriends. There was no man that Jodie would not answer back, and although Mungo admired that about his sister, he thought she put too much faith in the decency of men. This belief, this bravery, gave her a gallus tongue.”

— Douglas Stuart

111. “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

112. “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

113. “Well, they’re aw at it. It’s what us boys do when we’re alone. A bit of fun. ‘Asides, it’s like a tradition to some folk. You’re jist no supposed to mention it when you’re poor, but when ye’re rich, haw, haw, haw. It’s what all they posh boys do the gether. Oxford is full of it. Aw they boarding schools. They all love a bit o’ casual buggering down there.”

— Douglas Stuart

114. “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

115. “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

116. “The boy worried the sky.”

— Douglas Stuart

117. “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

118. “He let her cry, he let her talk, and he didn’t contradict her when she made him fine promises he knew she would be unable to keep.”

— Douglas Stuart

119. “Each time he held her he was less like a child. He was becoming something else, not yet a man, something like a stretched child, waiting to be inflated into adulthood. She clung to him while she could. He smelled fresh, like the fields outside.”

— Douglas Stuart

120. “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

121. “Is that a dolly ye’ve got, Shuggie?” The boy was using his name like he had known him a long while. Without waiting for an answer he added, “Are ye a wee girl?” He stepped into the long grass, flattening it as he came. Shuggie shook his head again. “If ye’re no’ a wee girl then ye must be a wee poof.” He tightened his smile. His voice was low and sweet, like he was talking to a puppy. “Ye’re no’ a wee poof, are ye?”

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

124. “It would be drunk open mouths, hot red tongues, and heavy clumsy flesh. Pure Friday-night happiness.”

— Douglas Stuart

125. “Auntie Jinty was the worst of them. She would pester Shuggie for a kiss as he came in the door from school. The boy could feel her warm tongue against his cheek like a piece of fatty stewed beef.”

— Douglas Stuart

126. “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

127. “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

128. “There was a time he would have taken pride in this orderliness. In reality, pushing the metal through the bumpy pink flesh was the easy part; the difficult part was resisting the urge to do the same to the customers.”

— Douglas Stuart

129. “I love the Smiths.”

— Douglas Stuart

130. “Shuggie always chose the same bright pink sponge pyramid, covered in red and white desiccated coconut and trimmed with a sugary sweetie on top. He would walk home very slowly in Wullie’s shadow, enjoying his spoils.”

— Douglas Stuart

131. “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

132. “He had been rubbing her back one morning as she told him she wanted to live somewhere she could have her anonymity back, a place her pride could be restored.”

— Douglas Stuart

133. “What was once built to be new and healthful now looked sick with a poverty of hope.”

— Douglas Stuart

134. “The damp wind kissed her flushed neck and pushed down inside her dress.”

— Douglas Stuart

135. “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

136. “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

137. “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

138. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

140. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

142. “The man moved with an odd jangling gait, like he was made up of a pile of plates that threatened to teeter over.”

— Douglas Stuart

143. “Mungo tilted his head back. He hadn’t noticed, but the sky wasn’t absolutely black after all. There were stars in every corner you could see. Even when he thought he found an empty patch of nothingness his eyes adjusted and the sky filled with frosted stars and then what looked like the cream left by stars. He had never seen the night sky like this before. He had never seen it so cloudless, without the soft orange filter from the lights of the scheme.”

— Douglas Stuart

144. “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

145. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

147. “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

148. “After that Shuggie tried to keep his eyes moving. He tried to surreptitiously soak in all the details of his father. He knew almost nothing about him, and while the others ate, he stole sideways glances at the man and wondered why he tolerated these other children but had left him.”

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

150. “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