Tyler Perry

I work three months really hard, nonstop, and then I take a month off. Then I do it all over again. I work hard but I give myself four breaks a year.

I definitely do not like Halloween. I don't like masks, creepy clowns, dark things, goblins or witches. They're not just my thing.

For me, there is a guiding compass that just lives inside of me. Every time I've gone against it, something bad has happened. As long as I stay in line and honor it, it has really been life changing.

My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model. And my mother, who was trying to protect me from him as best she could, she took me everywhere with her, which gave me a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the things women go through.

I don't do divas. I don't do entourages. I don't do the Hollywood crap.

Macaroni and cheese was my mother's special dish. She'd also make jambalaya and dirty rice and bake a ham that would be incredible. And greens. But if you were looking for vegetables and healthy things, there weren't a lot of those.

I've been on 'Oprah' a dozen times, and cried once.

I get a lot of flack from critics that my comedies are all over the place, my dramas are all over the place, they're schizophrenic - as if I don't know that!

I'm not afraid to have a character say, 'I am a Christian,' or, 'I believe in God,' because I think they represent real people on this Earth.

Forgiveness is important in families, especially when there are so many secrets that need to be healed - for the most part, every family's got them.

What I know about me is that, in order to lead, you also have to know how to follow.

Having my son has changed so much of what I dream about. It used to be about business, business, what's the next deal? What's the next movie? Now it's about him.

Did you know you can't say 'Jesus' in a sitcom? They told me that, and I was like, You gotta be kiddin' me. If you don't want my God here, you don't want me here either.

Developing a good work ethic is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you're a janitor or taking your first summer job, because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.

There's this great thing called the 'Chitlin' Circuit,' which I started my shows on and back in the day when, you know, Ray Charles and Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington, they couldn't get into white establishments, so they went on this circuit and toured. They were huge stars in their own community, you know, and that's pretty much my same story.

The idea of Christ's love for us all is inspiring to me.

I didn't want to be the kind of man that my father was. So I've tried, my entire life, to be the complete and utter opposite of that. And it has served not only the art well, but I think the audience well.

I don't think the dreams die - I think that people give up. I think it gets too hard.

I've been trying to learn to ski for years, but there's something about being 6-foot-5 and falling that's not appealing.

I think every one of us, in life, have some sort of moment that has happened that we wish we could have done differently or that we wish could have had a different outcome.

I've been doing television with TBS for quite some time, and it's been a great journey.

Oprah is very, very, very special to me. She's an amazing woman.

The key to life when it gets tough is to keep moving. Just keep moving.

I look at the stories that Spike Lee tells... Great stories. Great director, great storyteller.

I try to write from a point of view with my faith being always present and always there. don't want to write characters where everyone is saved. So this Madea character for me is not saved.

I was a very poor young black boy in New Orleans, just a face without a name, swimming in a sea of poverty trying to survive.

Very early on, when I started doing these plays and live shows, I would travel from city to city, and there were a million shows out there... so I wanted to step out among it, and I started putting my name above the title.

There are a lot of people who have dreams, goals, and hopes, but there aren't a lot who get to see them realized.

I'm not sure why no one wants to admit there's a viable audience out there that believes in God and wants to see a movie with their family. The demand is there. The supply is not.

If you haven't forgiven someone, it does not hurt that person. They're sleeping at night. You're holding onto that, and all the damage is being done to you internally.

If you look at everything I do - even in 'Boo!' there's a message, and it's always 'faith, family, forgiveness.' That's the greatest gift that I've been given. I can get a message to the very people I grew up with, the millions who love what I do.

I know my audience, and they're not people that the studios know anything about.

I'm not interested in doing 'Star Wars.' It's an amazing movie, but that's not my gift. I tell the stories that I tell that relate to the people who love what I do. That is the place and the path that I know I am supposed to be on. The minute I try and go do something else, it will be amazing to watch how quickly that don't work.

Tyler Perry's brand is faith, family and this whole thing that I've built, while my company, 34th Street Films, is like Disney's Touchstone. We can do anything. People don't know what to expect from me yet.

It's not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place, because it frees you.

Developing a good work ethic is a key to success. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you're a janitor or taking your first summer job, because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.

I love a good breakfast - grits and eggs, French toast, turkey bacon. My grandmother on my father's side used to make tea cakes, and her breakfasts were unbelievable. There was fresh ham, and she would go out to the yard to get fresh eggs. She lived in rural Louisiana, and we'd spend summers with her.

The most important thing that I learned in growing up is that forgiveness is something that, when you do it, you free yourself to move on.

My first show was called 'I Know I've Been Changed' in '92. I tried to do this show for years and years. It kept failing over and over and over again. Every time I went out to do the show, nobody showed up. I was like, 'What is this about?'

I know that there are a lot of people out there with stories far worse than mine but you, too, can make it. To those of you who have, welcome to life. I celebrate you.

I haven't read a book in a very, very long time because, when I'm writing, I don't like to see other people's work. I don't want to see something great and not be able to use it, and I don't want to have any subconscious influences.

There's a huge demand for my entertainment, and I can't meet the need. So I decided to try a TV show to reach as many of my fans as possible.

I've always believed in God, from the time I was very, very young. I always knew there was something with me, not necessarily knowing what to call it.

What I've been able to do with my character, Madea, and the other characters, with the jokes, is use it as an anesthetic to get to the heart and soul of real issues. And what I've found on stage over the years is that, while making people laugh, I can drop in pearls of wisdom.

After Obama became president, I realized that black people could not have put him in the White House - it had to be a collective effort of everybody in the country.

I've always wanted to work with Blair, and finally the timing was right. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. I think he's a hugely underrated actor in Hollywood.

I don't know about marriage as much as I do know that I'd be a great father.

I've never chased money. It's always been about what I can do to motivate and inspire people.

My mother was truly my saving grace, because she would take me to church with her. I would see my mother smiling in the choir, and I wanted to know this God that made her so happy. If I had not had that faith in my life, I don't know where I would be right now.

If you don't want my God here, you don't want me here either. God has been too good to me to go and try to sell out to get some money.

I think it's important to show a husband and a wife together, in a room, raising children, because you don't see that anymore.

Being on the 'Alex Cross' set, and watching and learning about and paying attention to everything that was going on there, I realized, 'Here is a moment for me to learn.'

I'm not a social media person; I don't know what's going on unless somebody tells me.

I am an architect at heart. I designed every home I've ever had, plus my studio.

'Madea' is a Southern term. It's short for 'mother dear.' So there are a lot of Madeas out there.

I don't want to leave this planet until I achieve everything that I was put here to do.

You don't try to do anything that Morgan Freeman does. He was the voice of God in a movie. That's Morgan Freeman!

I love to give. I've been a giver all my life.

Hollywood is finally waking up to the fact that people who go to church also go to the movies. I'm not sure what took them so long to see that or how long they'll keep it up.

I think there's something that happens at 40 where you settle into your own skin and you stop caring what people think - you realize life is a gift from God and you want to live it to the fullest.

Norman Lear is my all-time, ultimate hero. He's an amazing man. That's one person I'm looking forward to meeting. What he did, with shows and sitcoms, he's my hero.

It's a dream realized to partner with Oprah and bring scripted programming to OWN. She has accomplished so much with the network, and I'm excited to work with her to be a part of its continued growth.

I didn't have a catharsis for my childhood pain, most of us don't, and until I learned how to forgive those people and let it go, I was unhappy.

We are all allowed to support whoever we'd like to in this country. That's the greatest part about being an American - one of them, that is; you know what I mean?

I feel like I died as a child.

The Bible says that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. I believe that. Because I've seen it all work.

What do you spend $200 million on, with a film? I can't wrap my brain around that one.

My life has always been - there's never been a middle. Either I had or I didn't. Either I was up or I was down.

Madea is a cross between my mother and my aunt. She's the type of grandmother that was on every corner when I was growing up.

The heart of who I am as a person and as a man is forgiveness, after forgiving my father for a lot of things that were done when I was child.

Happiness for me is totally just being at peace knowing that, everything I'm doing, God is pleased with that. It's complete peace for me.

I have a fear of tubes and tunnels. Going through any tunnel causes me great anxiety.

I'm not an artist. I set the camera up and tell my story.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

Statistics say that I'm supposed to be in jail. And I'm not supposed to be alive.

I remember being a kid and praying in the hell of my house to have somebody love me and somebody that I could love.

Children love their mothers. Especially with a boy child and his mother, there's a bond that's unbreakable.

As I experience life and go through things, that's what I write about.

My mother wasn't strong like my aunt. She was just very passive.

The thing about using other people's money is they're going to set the rules.

I don't have a writer's room. I write all the shows myself. Ninety-one episodes a season, I'm sitting there at the computer writing and writing and writing because I want the voice to be authentic so that the audience is hearing from me and not other writers.

All my life I've tried to hide my height. I was taller than everybody else and stood out, so I would slouch and try to hide it.

You close the door on me and tell me I can't, I'm gonna find a way to get in.

What I've learned is you treat women right.

Everyone can relate to love, hurt, pain, learning how to forgive, needing to get over, needing the power of God in their life.

My family never went to a restaurant together; we never went to the movies together. Vacation, we never did that.

You can never be upset with the people who forced you into your dream or up higher.

My biggest success is getting over the things that have tried to destroy and take me out of this life. Those are my biggest successes. It has nothing to do with work.

I don't like popcorn, and I think it's so annoying when people have popcorn in the theaters. That is the loudest food.

Don't believe the hype. I don't care how many number ones you have at the box office, I don't care how much they say you're great, don't believe it. Just stay in your lane and do what you're supposed to do.

I love to see a woman in high-heeled shoes. There's something about the curve of the feet up the leg to the butt that's really, really wonderful, and the right pair of shoes can give you the right silhouette.

I had one request when I started doing the plays. My prayer was, 'God, let me do well enough to be able to take care of my mother.' I was able to do that 'til the day she died because of my audience.

In order to have the success with 'Empire,' you have to have Fox; you have to have huge P&A. You have to have huge budgets for the show. I'm pretty confident that the budget of 'Empire' is six times what I'm spending on 'Have And Have Nots.'

Seven years after my mother's passing, I still reach for the phone for a split second to call her. We spoke every day.

I'm trying to conquer swimming. I'm getting there. I've gotta conquer it. I had a fear of drowning and tunnels and flying. I started flying and got my pilot's license, so I conquered that. Now, I'm onto swimming and tunnels.

Ever since I've been blessed with success, I've struggled a little with anonymity and even family. I've had people calling asking for money, and I have to ask them first, 'Are you working? Have you been trying to help yourself?' Then I feel like I can help.

I knew that love was around. I truly believe my mother loved me. But feeling it all the time? I didn't.

It takes a week to do a sitcom in Hollywood. I do a show a day in my studio, three or four shows a week.

When black women are down with you and in your corner, you have an ally that will move Heaven and Earth.

I want a lot of people to see my movies. More black people. More white people. I want to make that connection.