Quotes from Tyler Perry

Try this affirmation: "I'm on the road to meet my dream.

This book is to help you understand that life is sometimes hard, and you have to laugh your way through it.

Half the time, the very thing you think that's going to destroy you or ruin you is the very thing that nobody cares about. My advice to anybody with skeletons is dust them off every now and then—as long as your closet ain't full of them. It's not good to have more than two or three.

What I have learned in this life is that you can never be ashamed of where you come from.

But what I found out, the longer you sit there and feel bad about yourself, the longer you're going to stay depressed.

The first thing you do to get over your depression is open up the curtains, put on some good music, take you a shower, get up, put on a good face, and open the door and go out and see the world. Everything that's kicking you, kick it back.

But God ain't going to do a thing until you get up and do something yourself. Everything starts with you.

I started writing to deal with my childhood abuse and to help me get over it. I began putting my thoughts on paper because I saw a show on Oprah where she said it was "cathartic" to write things down. Being from a substandard public school system, I didn't even know what "cathartic" meant. I had to look it up. So I started writing, but I didn't

even realize I was writing a play. I just used different characters' names so that if someone found my pages, they wouldn't know I was writing about myself. But eventually I let a close and trusted friend read what I'd written, and he said, "Man, this is a really good play.

When God asks, "What is that you have in your hand?" it's up to us to find the answer. Everyone's answer is different. But there is something we all share. Everything is already inside you. All you have to do is mine it. Dig down deep and discover your thing.

Every soul needs to experience authentic, no-holds-barred love. That's why it's important to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be out there leading with your open heart. No excuses. Too many of us worry about getting hurt, so we block our true feelings, protect our hearts, and hide behind "You have no idea how much I love you.

Jesus is our true light, and he came to bring us out of darkness. Without Christ, we would be left wandering aimlessly in the dark.

Mamma eagles are fierce," the pastor had said. "They're so fierce that—ready or not—they'll push their babies from the nest to force them to fly.

For years, I didn't understand this rule of life. I was always resisting change. I used to be so stubborn that a house would have to burn down to get me out of it. Now I know better. I'm glad to say that I have become sensitive to when it's time to move on. I can read the signs, whether they're obvious or subtle, and usually get going without needing to experience heaviness or turmoil.

uncomfortable in your situation, know that it's probably time for you to move on.

Think about yourself as a baby eagle leaving a comfortable nest. If things start becoming difficult while you're taking flight, don't be afraid. Spread your wings and fly. God's got you.

There ain't no man going to do something for you that you can't do for yourself. Get out there and make it happen for yourself.

A good first step to getting to this peaceful place is to write down your hurt. Let it all out. All of it. Once you're through writing it down, ask God for help. You want the path to forgiveness to be cleared. You want to let go of the mind loop of blame. You want to let go of the fire of anger. You want to stop tasting the bitterness of betrayal and hurt. Once your path is cleared…the sky is the limit.

Write a letter to the person who hurt you. In it, express how you felt in the past and how you're trying to forgive and heal. If it's authentic, wish this person well. (You don't need to send the letter.)

The truth is I had to imagine myself in a better place," I explained. "Because sometimes the nights got so cold and the days

so hard, if I didn't dream of better times, I wouldn't have made it.

Then I shared a favorite scripture, one that has guided me through life: The power of life and death lie in the tongue. "You can speak life or you can speak death," I went on. "I chose to speak life into my situation. I chose to use my imagination to take me higher. Not just in this life, but higher in Christ.

If God can bring me out of poverty and despair and place me right in the middle of the life I'd always imagined, he can do the same for anyone. And that includes you.

The conviction that you can change your life starts with your own thinking. If you're going through dark times and it feels as if there's not enough breath and light in your soul to keep you moving higher, you need to believe that now is the time to break through. The seed of change starts as a thought in your own mind. You begin by believing it.