Driven to insanity, driven to the edge
Driven to the point of almost no return
Driven to think awful thoughts, do awful things
But at least I’d like to think I’ve learned

I’m driven
Driven to be smarter
Driven to work harder
Driven to be better everyday
Driven to keep on and on
To achieve the things I want
I’ll be sorry if I don’t
Make the most of livin’
I’m driven

In my blinding drive to excel, in my need to do things perfectly, I’d missed the signs and taken the wrong road.

Be more than motivated, be more than driven, become literally obsessed to the point where people think you're fucking nuts.

Looks like what drives me crazy
Don't have no effect on you — But I'm gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.

When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? You’re chasing something that doesn’t exist. You’re making everyone around you miserable.
You’re making yourself miserable. Perfection? There’s about five times a year you wake up perfect, when you can’t lose to anybody, but it’s not those five times a year that make a tennis player. Or a human being, for that matter. It’s the other times. It’s all about your head, man.
-Brad Gilbert

Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.

It is not doubt but certainty that drives you mad...

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.

I'm already crazy. I'm a fearless person. I think it creeps up on you. I don't think it can be stopped. If my destiny is to lose my mind because of fame, then that's my destiny. But my passion still means more than anything.

No, brother, I'm sane. What drives people crazy is trying to live outside reality. Reality is terrible. It can kill you. Given time, it certainly will kill you. The reality is pain- you said that! But it's the lies, the evasions of reality, that drive you crazy. It's the lies that make you want to kill yourself.

I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination.

"It's a complex song, and it's fascinating to watch the creative process as they went back and forth and finally created it over a few months. Lennon was always my favorite Beatle. [ He laughs as Lennon stops during the first take and makes the band go back and revise a chord.] Did you hear that little detour they took? It didn't work, so they went back and started from where they were. It's so raw in this version. It actually makes the sound like mere mortals. You could actually imagine other people doing this, up to this version. Maybe not writing and conceiving it, but certainly playing it. Yet they just didn't stop. They were such perfectionists they kept it going This made a big impression on me when I was in my thirties. You could just tell how much they worked at this.
They did a bundle of work between each of these recording. They kept sending it back to make it closer to perfect.[ As he listens to the third take, he points out how instrumentation has gotten more complex.] The way we build stuff at Apple is often this way. Even the number of models we'd make of a new notebook or iPod. We would start off with a version and then begin refining and refining, doing detailed models of the design, or the buttons, or how a function operates. It's a lot of work, but in the end it just gets better, and soon it's like, " Wow, how did they do that?!? Where are the screws?

Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe
Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine, love
Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!

- <i>Moonage Daydream</i>

Sometimes I wish I knew how to go crazy. I forget how.