Look, everything is a major argument for me. That's how I make my living. I hope you leave these pages with that insight. I take myself and just about everything else seriously.

Since deciding which are the major arguments and which are the majorest arguments is almost impossible, I'm just going to run a few ideas up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Wait, that's a disturbingly patriotic metaphor. Redact it for me, please?

• We all know I changed linguistics forever and ever with my ideas of generative grammar, putting the kibosh on the theories of B.F. Skinner, who, until I came along, was the Don of language and psychology.
• To paraphrase myself, either you believe in freedom of speech or you support fascism. You decide.
• I don't look kindly on intellectuals who go on sabbatical only to ensconce themselves in some enormous library in a Western European capital, where they think they are producing material that will impact the human experience. Get out on the streets, brothers and sisters.
• America loves to play fancy tricks with its imperialist motives, dubbing its genocidal atrocities in Iraq as "Operation Freedom," or some other silly name.
• Sure, I was brought up in a household in which Zionism was a constant topic of concern and debate. As an adult, I am very critical of Israel's policy toward Palestine. Check out my book The Fateful Triangle for more details.