Parse eBooks for quotes

To parse eBooks for quotes, you’ll need to extract relevant lines that match quote-like patterns—typically enclosed in quotation marks or identifiable by attribution (e.g., “he said,” “she wrote”). Here’s a basic process and tools you can use:

1. Extract Text from eBook

Depending on the format, use the appropriate method:

For EPUB:

Use Python with ebooklib and BeautifulSoup:

python
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from ebooklib import epub
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

book = epub.read_epub('your_ebook.epub')
text = ''
for item in book.get_items():
    if item.get_type() == ebooklib.ITEM_DOCUMENT:
        soup = BeautifulSoup(item.get_content(), 'html.parser')
        text += soup.get_text()

For PDF:

Use PyPDF2 or pdfplumber:

python
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import pdfplumber

text = ''
with pdfplumber.open('your_ebook.pdf') as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        text += page.extract_text()

2. Identify and Extract Quotes

Use regular expressions or NLP to find quote patterns.

Regex Method (Simple):

python
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import re

quotes = re.findall(r'“([^”]+)”', text)  # Smart quotes
if not quotes:
    quotes = re.findall(r'"([^"]+)"', text)  # Straight quotes

for quote in quotes:
    print(quote.strip())

3. (Optional) Filter by Author or Character

If you’re targeting quotes by a certain character or author:

python
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import re

pattern = r'“([^”]+)”s*(?:,|.)?s*(?:said|says|wrote|according to)s+John'
quotes_by_john = re.findall(pattern, text, re.IGNORECASE)

4. (Optional) Use NLP for Better Attribution

For more sophisticated extraction (e.g., detect quotes and speakers):

• Use spaCy for named entity recognition.

• Use quote extraction libraries like quotextraction or fine-tuned models.

5. Output Format

Save or display in desired format:

python
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with open('quotes.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    for q in quotes:
        f.write(f"{q}n")

Let me know the eBook format and your criteria (e.g., speaker, keyword, theme), and I can help tailor the script further.