The Art Of Eavesdropping

If you could ask one question of a favorite author or playwright what would it be?

I'm pretty good at tuning out public conversations, unless the volume is excessive. On the other hand, eavesdropping, either intentional or unavoidable, has distinct advantages. This has become more apparent to me after almost two years of daily blogging. While engaged in this clandestine art at my local coffee shop today I began wondering: What % of the conversations found in books and plays contain at least snips of things overheard by authors?

From there it was a short distance to other wonderings. How many of my conversations have ended up in a book or play or blog post? How about yours? What's our legal recourse when an author, playwright or blogger uses our scintillating words or lucid opinions in their work? Is there a market for conversation analysts, i.e. someone who gets paid to eavesdrop and then cross references books, plays and blogs to alert conversationalists when they've been plagiarized? What's the name of the crime? Plagiarsation? Converize? Just asking.

My days as a loud talker are over. Never know who might be waiting to steal my bon mots.