I'd also go along with chromatic's suggestion of using a proper database.

Your script could then look something like this:

my $author;
my $quote;
my @subjects;

while (<>) {
  next if /^\s*$/;  # skip empty lines
  chomp;
  $author   = substr($_,3),             next if substr($_,0,3) eq '/-a
+';
  @subjects = split(/,/, substr($_,3)), next if substr($_,0,3) eq '/-s
+';
  $quote    = substr($_,3)                   if substr($_,0,3) eq '/-q
+';

  insertDB($author,@subjects,$quote);
}
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With a proper insertion subroutine insertDB depending on your database design.

-- Hofmator