Every so often I feel the need to pick up my well-worn copy of A Mencken Chrestomathy and turn to a random page to see what delightfully quotable passage I find there.  This morning's was a particularly good one, so I thought I'd share it:

All the great villainies of history have been perpetrated by sober men, and chiefly by teetotalers. But all the charming and beautiful things , from the Song of Songs to terrapin a la Maryland, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the Martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from well water to something with color to it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen.

And with that, I pour myself a tumbler of Gentleman Jack and sit down to grade student papers.