Non-AP Response Quote 2

“I know how people are, with their habits of mind. Most will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow...I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.”  
I would like to examine this quote as it relates to characters individually.
Rachel: Rachel pretty much exemplifies this quote the best. She has no idea the cost of her clean conscience. Even in her old age, with multiple husbands behind her she feels that she has earned all that she holds in her possession (her bar, hotel, faux-gold lining in the bathroom). She feels no guilt over Ruth May's death, no guilt over using Mr. Axelroot, and the husbands after him to get money, no guilt over the suffering of her father and her lack of reaching out to people. It is said "No Man is an Island," But Rachel truly is an island. She cares only for herself. The price of her conscience is a whole lot of forgetting and ignorance.
Nathan: The father of the Price family  and preacher is stubborn and self-righteous. His conscience can never be snow-white because of the incident in the war. He feels he was a coward because he was wounded and hid while the rest of his company went on the infamous Death March. The price of a snow-white conscience for Nathan is a life devoted to saving as many souls as perished on the march. Yet because of his self-righteousness, he never reachs it. In fact, he dies hated by everyone around him.
Orleanna: Orleanna has a hard time having a clear conscience because she is a mother who has failed her principal duty: protecting her children. Since she has lost Ruth May, she carries guilt with her for years. Also she fails to bring all of her children home. Only Adah does she manage to bring home. In the end the cost of a clear conscience for Orleanna is learning of Nathan's death and returning to the place where Ruth May was buried.
Anatole and Leah: This couple understands the cost of a clear conscience better than any of the other characters. For Anatole, he must starve in prison, live in fear and not know whether he will see his children grow up. For Leah, she must live in fear, be apart from her one true love, wait patiently, come to grips with the death of Ruth May, and stay in Africa to live an honest genuine life. Both of them live with consciences that tell them they have not done enough to save the others around them, yet of all the characters in the book, they have lived the most honestly and compassionately, so they should have clear consciences. The cost of a clear conscience can be the loss of a clear conscience.
Adah: Adah lives a 'False Hood' the cost of her conscience is that she must not forget, or disassociate herself from the old 'Ada.' Both parts must be embraced, and that is why she never has a husband.
 Overall, Rachel represents the "most [who] will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow" and all the other characters have an idea of what that conscience costs. They represent the blood, sweat, tears, and forgetting behind a clear conscience.