Just a few
Robert Frost was dropped from school for daydreaming. He was probably composing poems during some of his daydreams. (The Coincidence of ADHD and Creativity, Dr. Bonnie Cramond, 1995)
Frank Lloyd Wright daydreamed so intensely that his uncle had to shout at him to get him back (Cramond).
Thomas Edison was said to be "addled" because of his excessive daydreaming in class. Thomas (Al) Edison's schoolmaster, "angered by the lad's inattentive 'dreamy,' distracted behavior, frustrated by his tendency to drift off during recitations, to draw and doodle in his notebook instead of repeating rote lessons -- cuffed and ridiculed Al in front of his motley classmates. Teachers saddled with disaffected students like Edison were judged by how many pupils were promoted from one grade to the next, and they needed to rationalize the actions of children who were 'not apt.' Sure enough, 'One day,' Edison recalled with bitterness many years later, 'I heard the teacher tell the visiting school inspector that I was addled and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by this last straw that I burst out crying and went home and told my mother.' His indignant mother 'brought [him] back to the school and angrily told the teacher that he didn't know what he was talking about, that I had more brains than he himself.'" Mrs. Edison pulled Thomas out of school and began home-schooling, determined that "no formalism would cramp his style, no fetters hobble the free rein, the full sweep of his imagination." ("Edison - Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin, 1995).
Thomas (Al) Edison: "The tales of Al's youthful curiosity consistently stress the consequences of his compulsion to discover phenomena or validate nascent theories through direct experience: investigating a bumblebees' nest in the corner of a pasture, he was attacked by an angry ram. Exploring new ways to shorten a skate strap, the tip of his middle finger was cut off by an errant axe. Deciding birds could fly because they ate worms, he mixed mashed worms with water and convinced a neighborhood girl to drink the concoction. She got sick, and he got 'switched.'" ("Edison - Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin, 1995).
Thomas Edison started working for the railroad at age 13. During the next several years he was fired or quit numerous jobs in various fields. His first termination occurred when a chemistry experiment he was working on set fire to the train. His employer, a Scotsman, "burst in and summarily evicted the boy from the train a Smith's Creek station, hurling Al and his paraphernalia onto the platform --'Off ye go, lock, stock, and ivry drap o' chimicals with ye. Ah must a' been daft when Ah let ye br'r'ring thim aboord!'" ("Edison - Inventing the Century" by Neil Baldwin, 1995).
Nikola Tesla "had such strong visualization abilities that he would imagine the workings of his inventions to great detail without putting anything on paper or conducting any experiments until all of the problems were worked out" ("Tesla: Man out of Time" by M. Cheney, 1981).
Nikola Tesla "pursued so many ideas that he '...often did not follow-up on his intuitions, theories, and preliminary experiments to the point of verification.' This became a problem because others were then free to complete the invention and get credit for it as Tesla clamed Marconi did with the [radio]. Tesla was driven to action at one point when his bookkeeper reminded him that money was running out and his inventions were not being completed." (The Coincidence of ADHD and Creativity, Dr. Bonnie Cramond, 1995)
Nikola Tesla "was almost drowned on numerous occasions, was nearly boiled alive in a vat of hot milk, just missed being cremated, and was once entombed (overnight in an old shrine). Hair raising flights from mad dogs, enraged flocks of crows, and sharp tusked hogs spiced this catalogue of near catastrophes." ("Tesla: Man out of time" by M. Cheney, 1981)
Leonardo da Vinci was famous for his paintings but only managed to compose 17 painting in 67 years, and some of those were never finished. Freud claimed that this was because Leonardo's father had abandoned him. Leonardo said his inability to finish projects was because his interests were "so many and so diverse." (The Coincidence of ADHD and Creativity, Dr. Bonnie Cramond, 1995)
John Grisham "I am prone to start projects that never quite get finished." (from the forward to A Time to Kill.)
Ernest Hemingway at age five: "Young Ernest burst in one day with the news that he had stopped a runaway horse single-handed. His grandfather was much amused. 'Mark my words, Chumpy dear,' he told his granddaughter,'this boy is going to be heard from some day. If he uses his imagination for good purposes, he'll be famous, but if he starts the wrong way, with all his energy, he'll end up in jail.'" ("Ernest Hemingway, A Life Story" by Carlos Baker, 1969)