What is so downright perplexing is that the young now seem so much more severely serious than the old. Even so much more conservative in a special sense---the sense of honoring and cherishing the very best that's in them---like sincerity, openness, honesty and love. While the middle-aged so often express cynicism and self-disappointment.

There is, sadly, perhaps something very American about all this. Americans have always had a certain knack of being young. We know how. Up to a point. Then, the older we get chronologically, the greater and more apparent becomes the difference between our ages and our maturity. Emotional maturity in the average American adult---so says the joke---arrives at age 29. And lasts for an hour and twenty-seven minutes.

[From the album cover for The Graduate (Original Soundtrack Recording), Columbia Masterworks, Columbia Records/CBS Inc.]