fits and starts

We act by fits and starts, like drowning men, But just peep up, and then pop down again.

1681, John Dryden, Epilogue for ‘The King's House’, lines 1–2

T'other day as Apollo sat pitching his darts, / Through the clouds of November, by fits and by starts, / He began to consider how long it had been, / Since the bards of Old England a session had seen.

1811 December, [Leigh Hunt], “Art. X.—The Feast of the Poets.”, in [Leigh Hunt], editor, The Reflector, […], volume II, number IV, London: […] John Hunt, […] sold by J. Carpenter, […], →OCLC, page 314

I spent the night in fits and starts, getting up and lying down full twenty times, and dreaming the same dream over and over again.

1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in Master Humphrey's Clock

It is a stammered, sleazy chronicle, told by fits and starts in bits and pieces, and constantly interrupted by the director and actors.

1955 December 26, “Old Play in Manhattan”, in Time

2007, "Australian Premier vows troops pullout," Gulf Daily News (Bahrain), 22 Dec., Paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in fits and starts undermines US military planning and risks the gains made by US troops.