What writers cant teach one another

As an author, I'm always happy to answer the "Where do you get your ideas?" question, especially when it's asked at one of my author appearances.

My ideas tend to come from a wide variety of sources, so this question often opens to the door to a great deal of anecdotal material that I can use to entertain an audience.  

Oftentimes, a novel is a combination of ideas.  The innocent comment of a friend, an incident in the news, a piece of personal history and an unanswered question all woven together to form a story.   

But when aspiring writers ask me where I get the ideas for my novels in hopes of finding ideas of their own, I can't help but wonder:

Has any writer in ever asked this question of another writer, listened to the answer and thought, "Oh!  That's where ideas come from! Now I know exactly where to look!"

Of all the things that writers can teach one another, it seems to me that finding the ideas for stories is not one of them.

But this comes from an author who is fortunate enough to have no problem generating story ideas, so perhaps I am wrong?  

Thoughts?