Young Mungo Quotes

“Mungo’s capacity for love frustrated her. His loving wasn’t selflessness; he simply could not help it. Mo-Maw needed so little and he produced so much. So that it all seemed a horrible waste. It was a harvest no one seeded, and it blossomed from a vine no one tended.”
― Douglas Stuart, Unge Mungo

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

“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

“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 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

“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

“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

“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

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

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

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

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

“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

“So many lives were happening only two miles away from his and they all seemed brighter than his own.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“It was like hot buttered toast when you were starving. It was that good.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“Mungo lunged at him then and cracked his fist off his chest. He dared him to strike back. Violence always preceded affection; Mungo didn’t know any other way. Mo-Maw would crack her Scholl sandal off his back, purpling bruises curdling his cream skin, then she would realize she had gone too far and pull him into the softness of her breast. Jodie would scold and demean his poorly wired brain and then, feeling guilty, make a heaped bowl of warm Weetabix and white sugar.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“A father can tell. Gregor's a good lad. A bright, fresh-air mind. Always helps his mother around the house without being asked, but he's a wee bit ..." The man paused as though he couldn't find the correct word. "Artistic. T'chut. Do ye know what I mean by that?"

Mungo gave a small nod. He wasn't sure if what the man meant, and what he understood, were the same thing.

"Forgive me if I've read you wrong, David. But would I be right in thinking ye are a wee bit artistic yourself?" Calum didn't wait for an answer. "See, I know lots of men would be bothered by that. But I have no problem with ye if you are. I'm just saying ... Och, well, I dunno. I say the wrong thing sometimes.”
― Douglas Stuart, Un lugar para Mungo

“he could never share the hurt, because it would cloud their eyes and some part of them would wonder what he had done to deserve it.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“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, Young Mungo

“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.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“Like the stubborn oose you pick from an acrylic jumper, some unseen static kept pulling his gaze back to the boy. James turned away. He knew if they caught him staring they would have a hundred names for him before he had a name for himself.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“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, Young Mungo

“Listen son, at ma age love is a nuisance of a thing. What ye want is some easy company on a Tuesday night, a bit of help runnin’ the hoose, and if yer lucky a bit of nookie as long as ye can both lie on yer side while ye’re at it.” Mungo didn’t laugh at the joke. Jocky dropped his dout into his mug. “What ye want is an easy life. There’s nothin’ easy about love.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“I love the Smiths.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“Christ’s sake, Mungo. You must be steamin’. Have you forgotten what it’s like out there? If they knew, they would stab us! Rip us from balls to chin just for something to talk about down the pub.”
― Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo

“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, Young Mungo