Today I'm channelling.... Mariah Carey

"There is a light at the end of the tunnel - hopefully it's not a freight train."
Mariah Carey, 45 today

Today I'm channelling... Tennessee Williams

"After a glass or two of wine, I'm inclined to extravagance."
Tennessee Williams, born today 1911

Today I'm channelling... Aretha Franklin

"I'm a big woman, I need big hair."
Aretha Franklin 73 today

Today I'm channelling... Thomas Jefferson

"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."
Thomas Jefferson

Today I'm channelling... Reese Witherspoon

"I just want my daughter to grow up seeing complex, interesting, nuanced women in film."
Reese Witherspoon, 39 yesterday

Today I'm channelling... Aldous Huxley

"Stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability."
Aldous Huxley

Today I'm channelling... Glenn Close

"I've been on the best dressed list and the worst dressed list - I was prouder of the worst dressed."
Glenn Close, 68 today

Today I'm channelling... Luc Besson

"It's always the small people who change things. It's never the politicians or the big guys."
Luc Besson, 55 today

Today I'm channelling... Richard Attenborough

"I believe we need heroes, certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by."
Richard Attenborough

Today I'm channelling... Gertrude Stein

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense."
Gertrude Stein (said in 1946...)

Today I'm channelling... Sofia Coppola

"I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity."
Sofia Coppola

Today I'm channelling... Anne Frank

"No-one ever became poor by giving."
Anne Frank, died today 1945

Today I'm channelling... Douglas Adams

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
Douglas Adams, born today 1952

Today I'm channelling... John Hamm

"I stopped believing in a storybook existence a long time ago."
John Hamm, 44 today

Today I'm channelling... Madonna

"A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want."
Madonna, new album released today

Today I'm channelling... Maya Angelou (again)

"I'm a feminist. I've been a female for a long time. It'd be stupid not to be on my own side."
Maya Angelou #WOW2015

Today I'm channelling... Matilda

Matilda by Quentin Blake

"All the reading she had done had given her a view of life they had never seen."
Roald Dahl's Matilda #WorldBookDay

Today I'm channelling... Frances Perkins

"Being a woman has only bothered me in climbing trees."
Frances Perkins, the first woman appointed to the US cabinet, today in 1933

Today I'm channelling... Alexander Graham Bell

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success."
Alexander Graham Bell, born today 1847

Today I'm channelling... Dusty Springfield

"I wouldn't know how to handle serenity if someone handed it to me on a plate."
Dusty Springfield, died today 1999

Today I'm channelling... Elizabeth Taylor

"Success is a great deoderant."
Elizabeth Taylor, born today 1932

Today I'm channelling... Johnny Cash

"It's good to know who hates you. And it's good to be hated by the right people."
Johnny Cash, born today 1932

Today I'm channelling... Chelsea Handler

"There are two kinds of people I don't trust: people who don't drink and people who collect stickers."
Chelsea Handler, 39 today

Today I'm channelling... Steve Jobs

"Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do."
Steve Jobs, born today 1955

Today I'm channelling... Julianne Moore

"When someone says, 'I'm not political', I feel like what they're saying is, 'I only care about myself. In my bathtub. Me and my bathtub is what I care about."
Julianne Moore, who just bagged her 19th award (the big one) for Still Alice

Today I'm channelling... Cindy Crawford

"I really think - at any age - it's about learning to be comfortable in your own skin. If women would treat themselves with the same kind of love they give to their friends, that would be such a great gift...  What makes you most attractive is self confidence. That's what people see."
Cindy Crawford, 49 today

Today I'm channelling... Copernicus

"To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."
Nicolaus Copernicus, born today 1473

Today I'm channelling... Toni Morrison

"Freeing yourelf was one thing. Claiming ownership of that freed self was another."
Toni Morrison, born today 1931

Today I'm channelling... Iris Apfel

"When you don't dress like everyone else, you don't have to think like everyone else."
Iris Apfel

Today I'm channelling... Sarah Silverman

"It fills me with a weird rage to wear shoes that make me not able to walk easily or run if I had to."
Sarah Silverman

Today I'm channelling... Henry Rollins

"Do it, or don't do it. It's amazing how many things in life are that easy."
Henry Rollins

Today I'm channelling... Judy Blume

"Librarians save lives: by handing the right book, at the right time, to a kid in need."
Judy Blume, 77 today

Today I'm channelling... Jennifer Aniston

"I almost resent the whole fashion thing. Good God, never wearing the same thing twice and all of those things. It's a pain in the ass."
Jennifer Aniston, 46 today

Today I'm channelling... Laura Ingalls Wilder

"This, is now."
Laura Ingalls Wilder, little feminist on the prairie, died today 1957

Today I'm channelling... Alice Walker

"Hard times require furious dancing."
Alice Walker, 71 today

Today I'm channelling... Eddie Izzard

"Never put a sock in a toaster."
Eddie Izzard

Today I'm channelling... William S Burroughs

"You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal."
William S Burroughs, born today 1914

Today I'm channelling... Betty Friedan

"The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, is by creative work of her own."
Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, born today 1921

Today I'm channelling... Amal Alamuddin

"I'm wearing Ede & Ravenscroft."
Amal Alamuddin, 37 today, on being asked - yet again - who designed her outfit. 

Today I'm channelling... Ayn Rand

"The question isn't, who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
Ayn Rand, born today 1905

Today I'm channelling... Oprah

Beyoncé's birthday message to Oprah on Instagram

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down."
Oprah, 61 yesterday

Today I'm channelling... Robert Frost

"Accept no-one's definition of your life, define yourself."
Robert Frost died today 1963

Today I'm channelling... Colette

"Time spent with a cat is never wasted."
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, born today 1873

Today I'm channelling... Anne Frank

"How wonderful is it that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

Anne Frank, to mark Holocaust memorial day 2015

Today I'm channelling... Virginia Woolf

painting by Roger Fry, circa 1917

"Arrange whatever pieces come your way."
Virginia Woolf, born 25 January 1882

Today I'm channelling... Katharine Hepburn

"I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear."
Katharine Hepburn

Today I'm channelling... WC Fields

"It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to."
WC Fields

Today I'm channelling... Sarah Silverman

"If you feel you're living in someone's shadow, you should move."
Sarah Silverman

Today I'm channelling... Anne Kirkbride

"Ken, you're so boring."

Anne Kirkbride #RIPDeirdre

Today I'm channelling... Dolly Parton

"If anyone tells you  your hair is too big, get rid of them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life."
Dolly Parton, 69 today