The scalar /\G..../gc is a powerful construct to inchworm through a string. Here's an example of extracting whitespace delimited words from a string, which might include phrases that are single or double quoted.
$_ = q{whatever "this" 'line is'};

my @elements;
push @elements, $1 while
  /\G\s*"(.*?)"/gc or
  /\G\s*'(.*?)'/gc or
  /\G\s*(\S+)/gc;

print map "<<$_>>", @elements;

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In reply to Extract potentially quoted words by merlyn

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