The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us. When the world seems familiar, when one has got used to existence, one has become an adult.
Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing.
As soon as one knows one is going to die, childhood is over.... So one can be grown up at seven. Then, I believe most human beings forget what they have understood, recover another sort of childhood that can last all their lives. It is not a true childhood but a kind of forgetting. Desires and anxieties are there, preventing you from having access to the essential truth.
