my @bad = qw(fork smurf);
my $regex = join('|', @bad);
$regex = qr/$regex/;

foreach (<FH>){
    if(/^[0000-9999](.+)/){
        next if /$regex/;
        push( @witty_quotes,  substr( $_, 5) );
    } else { next };
}

##</code><code>##

use strict;

my @witty_quotes;
my @bad = qw(fork smurf);
my $regex = join('|', @bad);
$regex = qr/$regex/;

# open() FH somewhere

foreach (<FH>){
    # Note: it's important to put this regex test
    # outside of the if() block to ensure that $1
    # below comes from the correct pattern match
    next if /$regex/;

    if(/^\d{4}(.+)/){ 
        push( @witty_quotes,  $1);
    }
}