Mahavira

If one undertakes retrospection of the day's events, one must do it regularly at the appointed hour, not fitfully, not doing it today, neglecting to do it tomorrow and the day after and then taking it up again on the fourth day. Such irregular practice is not conducive to the confirmation of the habit of retrospection.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Obama's presence opened a new field for writers, and what began as curiosity about the man himself eventually expanded into curiosity about the community he had so consciously made his home and all the old, fitfully slumbering questions he'd awakened about American identity.

American Journalist

Steve Erickson

In the culture at large, the war over science fiction's creative validity has been long since won, but guardians at the gates of literature, movies, and TV linger unconvinced, even as other genres fitfully transcend critical perceptions of insubstantiality.

American Novelist

Anthony Minghella

I work fitfully, in hope rather than in expectation, invent methods which last a week, and fill notebooks with tiny, illegible writing which often defies my own attempts to decipher it.

British Director

H. G. Wells

Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him.

English Author

Use 'fitful' when something occurs in unpredictable bursts rather than consistently.

Frequency Matters

'Fitful' often implies discomfort or instability regarding the situation being described.

Negative Nuance

It's unusual to use 'fitful' with positive events; it typically describes disturbances or interruptions.

Not for Positives

 After cutting her arm with a broken glass, she fell into a fitful, exhausted sleep on the railway station platform.