A JOVANOVICH SAMPLER

From the 1976 annual report:

“The Securities and Exchange Commission seems to require that when a publicly traded company speaks of its prospects to shareholders and other investors--and presumably to anyone else who can be found without creating a public nuisance--it must do so universally if not indeed simulataneously. In 1977, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich will be notably profitable. The truth of the matter is this: right now we are rolling sevens.”

From the 1978 annual report:

“Our calculations were mutatis mutandis . The world turns but nobody falls off.”

From the 1981 annual report:

“The company is a whole with three parts and, like Gaul, cannot be invaded or partitioned without a wasting. To double that metaphor and make it amiable, let’s say that HBJ has been well invested over many years. To those investors, I extend the felicitations of the Officers and Directors.”