$re = '/(?xs)
(?<!\')(?:\'{2})*\B(\'\b[^\'\\\\]*(?:(?:\\\\.|\b\'\b)[^\'\\\\]*)*\') # Single quoted string literal
| # or
(?<!")(?:"{2})*\B("\b[^"\\\\]*(?:(?:\\\\.|\b"\b)[^"\\\\]*)*") # Double quoted string literal/m';
$str = 'I am "looking for" a way that doesn\'t break: "Lorem
ipsum\\" AAAAA" in this case. Or this AAAAA case. Or this \'AAAAA\' case.
Isn\'t this annoying?
I used to love the song Space Truckin\'. It is \'AAAAA\'.';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php