Shuggie Bain 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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, Shuggie Bain

“Big Shug Bain had seemed so shiny in comparison to the Catholic. He had been vain in the way only Protestants were allowed to be, conspicuous with his shallow wealth, flushed pink with gluttony and waste.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“The damp wind kissed her flushed neck and pushed down inside her dress. It felt like a stranger’s hand, a sign of living, a reminder of life.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“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, Shuggie Bain

“wondered why he tolerated these other children but had left him.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Mammy, can you no help?’ and ah just turned to her and said, ‘I have raised my children. I. Am. Done.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“Ah have been lonely fur years now. Lonely long afore ma wife died. Don't get us wrong. She was a guid wummin, a guid wummin just like our Colleen, but we were jist stuck in our wee routine. When ye think about it, ah've been under the ground most of ma life. There wasn't much in me for sharing at the end of a day. After twenty years, what do you talk about? But she was a guid wummin. She used to make me these big hot dinners, with meat and gravy, the plate scalding hot cos she'd warm it up all day in the oven. We ate big hot dinners because we had nothing left to say. Nothing worthwhile anyway. Ah'm forty-three. That's four years older than when ma father died, so I should've been done. I should've been retiring from the pits, living the rest of ma days out with her and with nothing to say. When I saw ye I wasn't looking. I didn't know of you then, hadn't heard our Colleen lift your name. That's wummin's stuff, isn't it? They don't talk to the men about that. Gossip. Telling tales. Chapel. That's their club. All I know is when I saw you sat behind that glass, I saw someone lonely too, and I hoped we might have something to say to each other. I realised then. Ah don't want to be done.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“What was once built to be new and healthful now looked sick with a poverty of hope.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“No, hen, we’re drinking piss-cold tea,” scolded Bridie. “It’s only ye who’s neckin’ vodka like it was tap water.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“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, Shuggie Bain

“I’ve never liked those AA places. They attract the lowest kind of people. God gave you a will. You should use it to save yourself.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“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, Shuggie Bain

“If he got this and she got that, then what would they themselves do without? It was a mother's math.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“At the front door she pushed a jam piece and a peeled carrot into his hand and told him to go and play and not to come back till it was dark. She pointed out into the distance and waved her hand wide across the scheme, meaning he could go anywhere he pleased for all she cared.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

“George said. “I am on fire. I do not burn. It’s Saint Agnes’s lament.”
― Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain