A rich diet does lead to earlier puberty but to my knowledge it does not student the adolescent growth spurt. Early pregnancy, before reaching adult height, does slow or stop growth.

People tend to shrink with age, especially after age 50 or so. It has to do with spaces between the joints amount of cartilage and posture. Bone length does not change.

Africans are not as tall as northern Europeans. But Manute Vol and other sports figures in basketball and football receive a lot of press coverage.

Genes are very important at the individual level but these differences tend to cancel at the national level.

Young children from Guatemala who are adopted into the United States gain considerable height relative to the standards. So the height difference cannot be genetic.

I agree that zinc is one of the important micro-nutrients but people require a balanced blend of food for our biological engines.

The English were relatively short in the mid-nineteenth century and so their expeditions return with stories some exaggerated, not doubt about "giants" who lived in other parts of the world.

The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.

Be the designer of your own future.

If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

Meditation is a skilful letting go: gently but with resolution.

I know the most terrible thing that can happen to a woman. That is the gang-up. Men put you to sleep with their drops and one man after another goes in and takes you.

We all make mistakes, probably the man most often.

The true profession of a man is to find his way to himself.

Whatever you know in your heart, live at the expense of anything else.

When I write, I actually hear the characters speak. Almost like an actor - even though I'm not an actor at all - getting into their truth and to justify what they do.

Retirement without the love of letters is a living burial.