Top 160 Douglas Stuart Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Mammy, can you no help?’ and ah just turned to her and said, ‘I have raised my children. I. Am. Done.”

— Douglas Stuart

102. “Dance for me, Hugh,” said Agnes, out of the blue. “Eh?” answered Shuggie, rolling over on the carpet.”

— Douglas Stuart

103. “He pushed his whole bloodied head under the freezing water. He knelt quietly for a minute, holding his breath, but the burn of shame wouldn’t go. He rubbed at his bloody face, and the water streaked and danced with light pink streamers. That’s very pretty, he thought, then he regretted thinking like that.”

— Douglas Stuart

104. “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

105. “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

106. “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

107. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

109. “In the silence he listened to her cough through the stupor, then she retched and a trickle of thick bile appeared on her lips. Shuggie reached inside her jumper sleeve and took out her toilet paper, carefully enough not to wake her. With a practised finger he reached inside her mouth and hooked out the bronchial fluid and bile. He wiped her mouth clean and lowered her head safely back on to her left shoulder. There.”

— Douglas Stuart

110. “She thought of the happy hours parked under the Anderston overpass, happy hours before they really truly knew one another.”

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

112. “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

113. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

115. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

117. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

119. “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

120. “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

121. “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

122. “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

123. “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

124. “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

125. “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

126. “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

127. “The boy worried the sky.”

— Douglas Stuart

128. “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

129. “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

130. “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

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

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

134. “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

135. “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

136. “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

137. “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

138. “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

139. “I love the Smiths.”

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

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

— Douglas Stuart

142. “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

143. “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

144. “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

145. “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

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. “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

149. “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

150. “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