 <p>Use a regex like this:</p> <pre><code>string input = "\"John Smith\" Pocahontas"; Regex rx = new Regex(@"(?&lt;="")[^""]+(?="")|[^\s""]\S*"); for (Match match = rx.Match(input); match.Success; match = match.NextMatch()) { // use match.Value here, it contains the string to be searched } </code></pre>