$re = '@(.*?</p>){3}\K@s';
$str = '<p>If you wanna improve yer German, don\'t try to read Heine or some elevated crap... watch old episodes of [callout]Tatort or Bukow & Konig[/callout].</p>
<p>If I were teaching a music appreciation I wouldn\'t teach Beethoven. I\'d teach Stamitz and average composers.</p>
<p>And here is a 3rd paragraph.</p>
<p>And here is a 4th paragraph.</p>
';
$subst = "<blockquote class=\"pullquote\">Tatort or Bukow & Konig</blockquote>";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str, 1);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
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