“The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man.”

Variant: Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

"There but for Fortune" (1963)
Lyrics

Tales of ordinary madness (1967-83)

Source: As quoted in "One Hard Way to Make a Living" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1981/05/04/one-hard-way-to-make-a-living by Roger Angell, in The New Yorker (May 4, 1981), p. 96; reprinted in Late Innings (1982) by Roger Angell, p. 358

"I Want You So Bad"
Lyrics, I Don't Want You Back (2004)

Source: The Collector

Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter One
Context: This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will.