Question: I'm trying to find all of the quoted text on a single line.

Example:

```none
"Some Text"
"Some more Text"
"Even more text about \"this text\""

```

I need to get: 

* `"Some Text"`
* `"Some more Text"`
* `"Even more text about \"this text\""`

`\"[^\"\r]*\"` gives me everything except for the last one, because of the escaped quotes.

I have read about `\"[^\"\\]*(?:\\.[^\"\\]*)*\"` working, but I get an error at run time:

```none
parsing ""[^"\]*(?:\.[^"\]*)*"" - Unterminated [] set.

```

How do I fix this?

Answer: 
```
"(\\"|\\\\|[^"\\])*"

```

should work. Match either an escaped quote, an escaped backslash, or any other character except a quote or backslash character. Repeat. 

In C#:

```
StringCollection resultList = new StringCollection();
Regex regexObj = new Regex(@"""(\\""|\\\\|[^""\\])*""");
Match matchResult = regexObj.Match(subjectString);
while (matchResult.Success) {
    resultList.Add(matchResult.Value);
    matchResult = matchResult.NextMatch();
} 

```

Edit: Added escaped backslash to the list to correctly handle `"This is a test\\"`.

Explanation:

First match a quote character.

Then the alternatives are evaluated from left to right. The engine first tries to match an escaped quote. If that doesn't match, it tries an escaped backslash. That way, it can distinguish between `"Hello \" string continues"` and `"String ends here \\"`.

If either don't match, then anything else is allowed except for a quote or backslash character. Then repeat.

Finally, match the closing quote.
A simple answer, without the use of `?`, is

```
"([^\\"]*(\\")*)*\"

```

or, as a verbatim string

```
@"^""([^\\""]*(\\"")*(\\[^""])*)*"""

```

It just means:

* find the first `"`
* find any number of characters that are not `\` or `"`
* find any number of escaped quotes `\"`
* find any number of escaped characters, that are not quotes
* repeat the last three commands until you find `"`

I believe it works as good as @Alan Moore's answer, but, for me, is easier to understand. It accepts unmatched ("unbalanced") quotes as well.