Fortune Cookie Generator: Break a Cookie, Read Your Fortune

1. Look at the dish. A single cookie sits on Vela's table, waiting.
2. Tap "Break the cookie." It cracks in two and a paper slip comes out.
3. Read the slip. You get one fortune, picked at random from about 150 written for this site, and six lucky numbers between 1 and 49.
4. Break another. Tap again for a new cookie. The fortune and the numbers are drawn fresh every time, so no two slips are tied together.

There is nothing to type and nothing to save. Open one cookie, or open twenty.

Fortune cookies are older in California than in China. They first turned up in the early 1900s, and the best-supported story points to Japanese immigrant bakers in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Those bakers made a similar crisp, folded cracker called tsujiura senbei, which in Japan came with a paper fortune tucked inside the fold.

Chinese restaurants in the United States picked the cookies up and began serving them after meals, especially in the 1940s and after, which is why most people link them with Chinese food. Fortune cookies are not a traditional Chinese dessert, and you will rarely find them in China today.

A good slip usually falls into one of four kinds, and our 150 fortunes cover all of them:

• Prophecy. A gentle prediction, such as a letter arriving or a plan coming together.
• Advice. A small nudge to try something, call someone or slow down.
• Wisdom. A short thought about patience, kindness or noticing the day you are in.
• A little humor. A fortune that makes you smile and maybe read it out loud.

Every fortune here is written to be warm and easy to carry with you. None of them deliver bad news.

Each slip also prints six numbers from 1 to 49, drawn at random. They have no hidden meaning and no connection to the fortune beside them. Use them for fun: a screen name, a house number for a story, a number to pick for a friendly game.

We don't encourage gambling, and these numbers are not a tip for any lottery or bet. If you want numbers that are tied to your own name or birth date, try an angel number calculator or the life path number calculator instead.

• A party game. Pass the phone around the table and have everyone break a cookie and read their fortune aloud.
• A daily pick-me-up. Open one cookie with your morning coffee and keep the line in mind until evening.
• A writing prompt. Use the fortune as the first line of a short story, a journal entry or a poem.
• A conversation starter. Send a slip to a friend and ask what they think it means.

If you would like a card with a meaning and a question to think about, pull your tarot card of the day. For a slower, more personal moment, ask Vela a question at the crystal ball.