One of those books that defined the movement.

I was rather late in reading this book. I read it again it was serialized in Marathon and Beyond. A decade after that reading it I still recall some of the concepts that he outlined.

"Man's fourth unalienable right is time-out. This pause, this breather, this break in the action is what makes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness possible. Without the time-out, I would not know what life to lead, how to use my liberty or what happiness to pursue. At the moment I forget whence I came, why I am here and where I am going, it is the right to call "Time" that saves me."

"I find this truth to be self-evident. I see it every weekend on television. When winning and losing hangs in the balance, when the play gets ragged and the players fatigued, when the game plan has been forgotten and the athletes demoralized, the time-out works wonders. I've seen courage replace fear and purpose take the place of indecision. I've seen teams come back relaxed and composed and confident, all because of the time-out."

"And so when I am losing my head and all about me are keeping theirs, when I am filled with the frustrations and anxieties of my daily routine, when I am no longer living my own life but simply reacting to others, I look for a time-out, whether it is 60 minutes or 60 seconds."

"That time-out, that hour a day that belongs to me, just remain inviolate. No excuse, no friend, no cause, no duty, can come between me and that hour and whatever I might want to do with it. Mostly I take that hour and run with it, and thereby revive and restore and replenish the man I am."

"The 60-second time-outs, on the other hand, cannot be programmed. I take them where I find them. At a stop-light, I could fume and sputter about getting there instead of being here. but it is much better to read a book. Or do isometric exercises for my stomach muscles. Or take the opportunity to recharge my senses with colors and odors and sounds, or to see the geometry of the buildings, the pattern of the trees, the movement of the people, or to see familiar objects as if for the first time. And soon my red lights become too short."

"Too soon I am being whistled back into the game. Too soon I begin to forget once again I am animal, artist, mystic, clown, that I am really concerned with quite simple things with things that only come when I finally loose the reigns and become calm and relaxed and cease my tense activity, when I stop counting and measuring and comparing and weighing." ( )