- I promise to borrow bravery, for it’s a paradox to have it. If you never had to act bravely, you couldn’t know if you were. And if you did (and lived to tell), perhaps the act wasn’t brave for there was no real risk.
- I promise I will split the infinitive (But will probably try to keep its home together for the sake of the children).
- I promise to re-read this poem only twice so as not to erase the original (for if you replace a poem by Perseus one word at a time…does the original poem still exist?)
- I promise to promise only the promises that were promised to be promised to me. For it’s only what I learn that means anything, which is to say it’s only what I think I learn that means anything, which is to say it’s only what I think about thinking that means anything.
- I promise that I will pluck my eyes out of the sockets for the girl who abuses me the most.
- I promise that I will always remember my personal Alamo even though I wasn’t there.
- I promise to relish my typos, thanking them for being themselves and not trying to be something they are not, for they are the teenagers who obey all the advice we give them growing up, particularly the advice we never followed ourselves.
- I promise to watch the same thing on the television as my compatriots and then talk about it tomorrow.
- I promise to not keep my feet on the ground because I don’t want those sky high dreams to soar away from me.
- I promise to be a cosmonaut only in vain.
