Oscar: I have been accused of plagiarizing the work of Ethel Myers in my recent article  But that accusation is unwarranted  Although I admit I used passages from Myers' book without attribution, Myers gave me permission in private correspondence to do so  Millie: Myers cannot give you permission to plagiarize  Plagiarism is wrong, not only because it violates authors' rights to their own words, but also because it misleads readers: it is fundamentally a type of lie
A lie is no less a lie if another person agrees to the deception
Plagiarism is never justified, but writers are justified in occasionally quoting without attribution the work of other writers if the work quoted has not been published.