Great writers steal from them outright, or how I learned to stop worrying and love someone else's story

CONGRESSMAN
Personally, I don’t know what to say to people who argue that the N.E.A. is there to support art that nobody wants to pay for in the first place. I don’t know what to tell people when they say Rogers and Hart didn’t need the N.E.A. to write Oklahoma, and Arthur Murray didn’t need the N.E.A. to write Death of a Salesman.

TOBY
I’d start by telling them that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote Oklahoma, and Arthur Murray taught ballroom dance, and Arthur Miller did need the N.E.A. to write Death of a Salesman, but it wasn’t called the N.E.A. back then. It was called W.P.A.

--The West Wing, "He Shall From Time to Time," Aaron Sorkin
Broadcast: January 12, 2000

The Speaker looked up at me and said, "You know, Arthur Murray never needed a grant to write a play." Now, from my years of dancing school I know who Arthur Murray is. I even know that he ended all his television programs by advising his viewers to "put a little fun in your life: try dancing." But I kept quiet. I didn't want to jeopardize the funding. On the way out, after his side whispered in his ear, the Speaker turned to me and said, "I'm terribly sorry. I meant Arthur Miller." I replied, "yes. And he did have a grant. It was called the WPA."

--The State of the Arts, essay in "Shiksa Goddess", by Wendy Wasserstein
Published in 2001, but event took place "in the mid-1990s."

I've found no evidence of Wasserstein and Sorkin being friends, but it's certainly possible that's how he heard the story as they both would have run in the same circles as New York playwrights.

SAM
You came by just to tell me you liked the speech?

MALLORY
"This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars."? I'm weak.

SAM
Yeah. I think I stole that from Camelot.

MALLORY
Let me get you home. I don't think you're going to make it.

SAM
Yeah. I don't think I'm going to make it, either.

They walk out to the COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE and continue to the HALLWAY.

MALLORY
Camelot?

SAM
Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

--The West Wing, 20 Hours in America", Aaron Sorkin (and I think he stole the line)