Well, that kind of thing happens to me all the time: I get a favorite expression into my head and just have to recycle it time and again.
It doesn't even have to be my own, and that's probably pretty bad.
I know I also used this consciously as a kind of kudos to one author or other. I definitely re-used Ann's claim about the Bat Mobile being always around the corner, for instance. I know I commented on that phrase, and I also used it at a later time somewhere. (If only I remembered where...) Honestly, it was meant as an inside joke, not as a try ot make my writing better by plagiarising.
What I would never do, though, is quote whole passages of another person's work.
