The Hundred Secret Senses is a bestselling 1995 novel by Chinese-American writer Amy Tan. It was published by Putnam, and was shortlisted for the 1996 Orange Prize for Fiction. While the story is fictional, it is based on the experiences of Tan and on stories told by her mother.
“Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.”
Source: The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), p. 9
Source: The Hundred Secret Senses
Source: The Hundred Secret Senses
Variant: Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming — well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate. Isn’t that true?
Source: The Hundred Secret Senses (1995)
“I love and am loved, fully and freely, nothing expected, more than enough received.”
Source: The Hundred Secret Senses
“My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes.”
The Hundred Secret Senses (1995)
Context: My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco.
"Libby-ah," she'll say to me. "Guess who I see yesterday, you guess." And I don't have to guess that she's talking about someone dead.
