"By fits and starts" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so very gay, And not by fits and starts, But ever, through each livelong day She's sunshine to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... in the case of uneducated persons, happens because they are not conscious of those faculties, or of their right laws, but use them blindly and capriciously, by fits and starts, talking sense on one point and ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... grottoes, crammed with machine-guns, were so many fortresses; the whole valley was a veritable hell. There were incessant counter-attacks, which the Allies, on the bare plateau, entirely devoid of cover, could repel only with the greatest difficulty. They pushed forward step by step, and by fits and starts. On the 19th our troops were hard put to it to hold the ground they had taken the day before; on the 20th they barely began to nibble at the ravines, at Ploisy and L'Echelle. On the 21st the Americans took Berzy-le-Sec, and the French were astride the lower waters of the ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled. The spectre came back, a week ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts." ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... mentioned Beethoven. And from this period onwards the kinship between the two composers becomes more evident. Haydn, however, did not, like Beethoven, rise steadily higher and higher; great moments came, as it were, by fits and starts. He wrote in season and out of season; nulla dies sine linea seems to have been his motto. With Beethoven, a later work, unless it be one of his few pieces d'occasion, means a fuller revelation of ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... constant admiration of the women of our country goes out to actresses, actors, professional beauties, with popular authors and lecturers a bad second, and that of the men is evoked by prize fighters, ball players and the rich. No wonder the problems of the world find no solution, for it is only by fits and starts that men and women admire real intelligence and real ability. The orator has more admirers than the thinker, and this is the curse of politics; the executive has more admirers than the research worker, and this is the bane of industry; the entertainer ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... or less of a dreamer himself, consented, and, after lighting fresh cigars, they threw themselves on the soft, dry grass near the tall hedge that fenced the avenue as it neared the castle grounds. For half an hour they talked by fits and starts; long silences were common, broken only by brief phrases which seemed so to disturb the one to whom they were addressed that he answered gruffly and not at all politely. Their, cigars, burnt to mere stubs, were thrown away, and still the waking ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... on by fits and starts; some scenes were repeated, others were left out; at intervals the conductor rapped his desk nervously and abused somebody, or spoke with great affability to Margaret, or with the familiarity of long acquaintance to one of the other singers. Logotheti did not notice these interruptions, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... I saw little by little how it was furnished. The table in the midst, at which His Majesty wrote, was all in disorder; it was piled high with papers and books, for he would do what writing or reading he cared to do by fits and starts. The walls were hung with panels of tapestry, and tall curtains of brocade hung at the windows. Between the panels were pictures hung upon the walls—three or four flower-pictures by Varelst; three pictures of horses and dogs by Hondius, and ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... duel, St. Megrin had been assassinated by M. de Mayenne, and the wounds left by their deaths were still fresh and bleeding. The affection he bore his new favorites was very different from what he had felt for the old. He had overwhelmed D'Epernon with benefits, but he only loved him by fits and starts, and at certain times he even hated him, and accused him ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... aromatic, so full and so fine. If you wind up the evening with grog, you will own there was never such grog; at every sip a jocund tranquillity spreads about your limbs, and sits easily in your heart. If you read a book—and you will never do so save by fits and starts—you find the language strangely racy and harmonious; words take a new meaning; single sentences possess the ear for half-an-hour together; and the writer endears himself to you, at every page, by the nicest coincidence of sentiment. It seems as if it were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by fits and starts," says Brantome, "that one was well fed during this reign, for very often circumstances prevented the proper preparation of the repasts; a thing much disliked by the courtiers, who prefer open table to be kept at both court and with the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix |
