Star map quotes, checked and sized to fit the poster

The short answer

• One line, up to 40 charactersThat counts spaces and punctuation. The poster prints it on one line under the sky, and a long line gets smaller letters.
• Up to 32 characters print at full size on Our starUnder the stars keeps full size up to 23, The whole night up to 22. Most lines on this page are shorter than 30.
• The place and the date are printed anywayEvery design sets them under your line, so the 40 characters are all yours.
• Old lines are free to print, if you have the words rightEvery line below was found word for word in its source text, and several famous ones turned out to be misquoted or credited to the wrong person.

Updated October 31, 2026, by the Meridian studio.

How long a line can be

The editor's line field stops at 40 characters. Up to a point the letters keep their full size, and after that the poster code makes them smaller so the line stays inside the paper. We read the letter size back from the print file for each length:

On an 18 × 24 print, a full-size line is 60 pt on Our star, 69 pt on Under the stars and 75 pt on The whole night. On 12 × 16 everything is two thirds of that. Our star uses a script that starts smaller, so it keeps full size the longest.

Each design also adds its own words, so do not spend characters repeating them. Under the stars prints UNDER THE SAME STARS above your line and the coordinates under it. Our star prints the name of the circled star and "was shining above us", or "was shining right above us" when the star was high. The whole night prints your line and then the place and date.

Star map quotes by occasion

For each line: its length, the share of full size it prints at on each design, and where it comes from. Where a line starts in the middle of a sentence we gave its first word a capital, nothing else.

For a couple

Hamlet's little verse to Ophelia starts with the stars and ends on a promise: "Doubt thou the stars are fire, … But never doubt I love." For more lines from weddings and readings, see what to write on a wedding star map.

For an anniversary

For a birthday

Beatrice says it when she is told she was born in a merry hour: her mother cried, she answers, but a star danced. Her whole sentence is too long for the poster (more on that below), so the first half carries it. For the night they were born, see birthday star maps.

For a new baby

Twinkle, twinkle, little star	29	83%	100%	76%	Jane Taylor, The Star, in Rhymes for the Nursery (1806)
He calleth them all by their names	34	70%	97%	65%	Psalm 147:4, King James Version; the verse starts: He telleth the number of the stars

The Psalm line suits a birth poster because of the verse it closes: the stars are counted and each one has a name. For which star the poster circles in each birth month, see birth star maps.

In memory of someone

Juliet's line reads in full: "Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars". Editions differ here. The Project Gutenberg text has "when I shall die", many school editions print "when he shall die". The part that goes on the poster is the same in both. For the night to print and how the poster handles a loss, see memorial star maps.

Famous lines that are too long

The field takes 40 characters and stops there, so a longer line is cut off in the middle of a word. Three that people often want:

• There was a star danced, and under that was I born.51 characters, Beatrice’s whole sentence, same scene. The field would cut it after "under that". The first half alone (23) fits at full size on every design but The whole night, where it prints at 96%.
• Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.42 characters, Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer, Leaves of Grass. Even without the full stop it is one over, and the poster would lose the last letter of the last word.
• The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars43 characters, Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, act 1 scene 2. Cassius goes on: "But in ourselves, that we are underlings." It is a line about blame, which is worth knowing before it goes on a gift.

Checked: lines often credited to the wrong person

Lists of star map quotes copy each other, and some credits do not hold up. What we found when we looked them up:

• "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves"Often given as Shakespeare. These words are not in the Project Gutenberg text of his complete works. The line people mean is the Julius Caesar one above, which says something else: the blame is ours, not the stars'.
• "It's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."Often given as Abraham Lincoln. Quote Investigator found no evidence that Lincoln said it; the earliest strong match is a 1947 advertisement for a book by Edward J. Stieglitz.
• "Twinkle, twinkle, little star"Often printed as a Mother Goose rhyme, and the old anthology Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories on Project Gutenberg signs it Anonymous. It was written by Jane Taylor and published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, under the title The Star.

Your own words

A quote is one choice. Names alone work well, and so does a short line of your own. A few things that help:

• Names first, then a short line"Ana & Luke · " takes 13 characters and leaves 27 for the line. "Ana & Luke · Love’s not Time’s fool" has 35 characters and prints at 94% on Our star, 68% on Under the stars.
• Keep the date out of itThe date is already printed under your line. "Est. 1998" or "Ten years" says something the date does not.
• Read it out loudA line that sounds right spoken usually looks right on the wall. If it needs a comma to make sense, keep the comma.
• Check the spelling in the previewWe print exactly what you type, capitals and all. The editor shows it on the poster before you pay.

Sizes and prices

Each size and frame carries the same poster. The 12 × 16 in sits on a nightstand or a desk, the 18 × 24 in fits a bedroom wall, the 24 × 32 in goes over a bed or a sofa.

Shipping is free in the US. Launch prices until Nov 30. More frames, and the price of every size and frame, are in the editor before you pay.

Returns

A poster with a name that arrived as ordered is not taken back. Damaged or printed wrong: email a photo within 30 days of delivery and we reprint or refund in full. See returns.

More star maps

• Star map gift ideas
• Wedding star map
• Anniversary star map
• Birthday star map
• Birth star map
• Memorial star map
• Are star maps accurate?