The Grapes

"Tom was silent for a moment, then, "I'm gonna take a fall outa you, Al. You jus' scrabblin' ass over tit, fear somebody gonna pin some blame on you.  I know what's a matter.  Young fella, all full a piss an' vinegar. Wanta be a hell of a guy all the time. But, goddamn it, Al, don' keep ya guard up, when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya.  You gonna be all right." - p.248

"Every night a world created, complete with furniture-friends made and enimies established; a world complete with braggarts and with cowards, with quiet men, with humble men, with kindly men. Every night relationships that make a world, established; and every morning the world torn down like a circus.
At first the families were timid in the building and tumbling worlds, but gradually the technique of building worlds became their technique.  Then leaders emerged, then laws were made, then codes came into being.  And as the worlds moved westward they were more complete and better furnished, for their builders were more experienced in building them.
The families learned what rights must be observed-the right of privacy in the tent; the right to keep the past black hidden in the heart; the right to talk and to listen; the right to refuse help or to accept, to offer help or to decline it; the right of son to court and daughter to be courted; the right of the hungry to be fed; the rights of the pregnant and the sick to transcend all rights.
And the families learned, although no one told them, what rights are monstrous and must be destroyed: the right to intrude upon privacy, the right to be noisy while the camp slept, the right of seduction or rape, the right of adultery and theft and murder. These rights were crushed, because the little worlds could not exist for even a night with such rights alive." -p.265

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath