Hello beautiful.
-- Charlie Padavano

Importance: These words—from which Napolitano draws the novel’s title—help to showcase one of the central themes in the narrative. Charlie always greets his daughters with the words “Hello beautiful,” thereby gesturing at his constant, selfless love for those around him. Over the course of the novel, many of the characters come to appreciate the importance of this unconditional, overwhelming love.

We’re not separated from the world by our own edges… We’re part of the sky, and the rocks in your mother’s garden, and that old man who sleeps by the train station. We’re all interconnected, and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is.
-- Charlie Padavano

Importance: After Charlie’s funeral, Sylvie recalls an interaction with him in which he claimed that they share a certain emotional vulnerability; they each refuse to be “separated from the world by our own edges” (73). Sylvie, like...