“History of Drama did leave me with one valuable thought. One of the playwrights – was it Lope de Vega? – believed that ideas were somehow spewed into the atmosphere to be seized by anyone with a receptive mind, and that upon receiving an idea one should use it immediately because others were sure to pluck the same idea from the spheres. This one wisp of philosophy, no more than a sentence or two from a college course, has haunted me all my writing life.”
