Gass's central claim was radical: the inner monologue — the voice we talk to ourselves in — is not peripheral to identity but is its very core. He had arrived at this insight partly through observation. He told the story of overhearing his fourteen-year-old son Richard, who had rushed out of the house narrating his own life in the voice of a radio sportscaster: 'Well, racing fans, it looks like the question we've all been asking is about to be answered, because HERE COMES RICHARD GASS OUT OF THE PITS NOW!' This led Gass to investigate the forms of inner speech — broadcasting, courtroom drama, lecture, sermon, prayer, Browning-esque monologue, pornography, bedtime story, diary, novel. His own dominant mode was the lecture: 'I realized that when I woke in the morning, I rose from bed only to ask the world if it had any questions.' The humor was self-deprecating, but the philosophical point was serious: the form of our inner talk shapes who we become.