"Fits and starts" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drowned in the din. But though it prevented us from sleeping, it also fairly drove away all ghostly alarms. By twelve o'clock or thereabouts the party seemed to disperse, and all grew still. Then came some hours I can never forget. There was faint moonlight by fits and starts, and I not only found it impossible to sleep, I found it impossible to keep my eyes shut. Some irresistible fascination seemed to force them open, and obliged me ever and anon to turn in the direction of the stove, from which, however, before going to bed, I had removed the blue paper parcel. ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... and the attraction of the central body has more effect. When this takes place the planet or satellite falls slightly towards the body around which it revolves, thereby increasing its speed till the centrifugal force again balances the centripetal. This would seem to make it descend by fits and starts, but in reality the approach is nearly constant, so that the orbits are in fact slightly spiral. What is true of the planets and satellites is also true of the stars with reference to Cosmos; though many even of these have subordinate motions in their ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... time not so sudden, but far more distinct. There was no mistaking it now. As sure as I lay there, it was something on the roof! It sounded like something crawling slowly and by fits and starts along the gutter just above the dormitory. Sometimes it seemed to spring upwards, as though attempting to reach a higher position, and then sullenly slip down and proceed ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... appeared in all the glory of that phlegmatic humor peculiar to Britain and to all its products which make believe they are alive. The apparition put you in mind of the Commandant's statue in Don Juan, it walked along, jerkily by fits and starts, in an awkward fashion invented in London, and cultivated in every family with ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac
... proudest title was "the gentleman king." Like his contemporaries, Leo X, and Henry VIII of England, he patronized the arts, and literature flourished during his reign. He was not, however, a wise statesman; he was unable to pursue a consistent policy, but, as Voltaire says, "did everything by fits and starts." ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
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