One or more
lines of text immediately followed by.
The author name on one line.
[Two line]
[breaks.]

"One or more lines of text immediately followed by.","The author name on one line."
[Line break]

$ cat infile
One or more
lines of text immediately
followed by.
The author name on one line.


More
lines.
firstfire
$ sed -nr 'H; x; $ba; /\n\n/{:a; s/^\n|\n\n//g; s/\n/ /g; s/([^.]+\.) +(.*)/"\1", "\2"/; p; b}; x;' infile
"One or more lines of text immediately followed by.", "The author name on one line."
"More lines.", "firstfire"

$ awk 'BEGIN { RS = "\n\n\n" }
{
  gsub(/^|$/,"\"")
  sub(/\n+"$/,"\"")
  $0 = gensub(/\n([^\n]+"$)/,"\",\"\\1","g")
  gsub(/\n/," ")
  sub(/$/,"\n")
  print
}' file

# a one liner should be less than 80 characters
# 84 chars puts it a bit over
awk -F'\n' -vRS='\n\n\n' '{author=$NF; NF--; printf("\"%s\",\"%s\"\n", $0, author)}'

# we can squeeze it down a bit: 62 chars
awk -F\\n -vRS='\n\n\n' -vQ=\" '{a=$NF;NF--;$0=Q$0Q","Q a Q}1'

# 60 chars, requires gawk version 4+
awk -F\\n -vRS=\\n{3} -vQ=\" '{a=$NF;NF--;$0=Q$0Q","Q a Q}1'

# But if the last "famous quote" isn't followed by 2 line breaks you need
# -vRS='\n(\n\n|$)'

# I also thought a=$(NF--); should be equivalent to a=$NF;NF--;
# but this doesn't work for some reason...

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx

Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are
busy driving cabs and cutting hair.
George Burns

My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child.
We can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.
Rita Rudner

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them
pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
Winston Churchill

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and
car keys to teenage boys.
P.J. O'Rourke

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.
Albert Einstein

#!/bin/bash
#   Daniel B. Martin   Sep12
#
#   To execute this program, launch a terminal session and enter:
#   bash /home/daniel/Desktop/LQfiles/dbm472.bin
#
#  This program inspired by
#  http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/
#    convert-text-paragraph-for-database-4175426737/

# File identification  
InFile='/home/daniel/Desktop/LQfiles/dbm472inp.txt'
OutFile1='/home/daniel/Desktop/LQfiles/dbm472out1.txt'
OutFile2='/home/daniel/Desktop/LQfiles/dbm472out2.txt'
OutFile3='/home/daniel/Desktop/LQfiles/dbm472out3.txt'
OutFile4='/home/daniel/Desktop/LQfiles/dbm472out4.txt'

# 1) Change all line breaks to tildes.
# 2) Change all double tildes to single line breaks.
# 3) Prefix and postfix every line with a double-quote .. and ..
#    replace the last tilde in each line with a comma.
# 4) Change all tildes to blanks.
echo; echo "Method of DBM"
tr "\n" "~"  < $InFile            \
|sed -r 's/~~/\n/g'               \
|sed -r 's/(.*)~(.*)/"\1","\2"/'  \
|tr '~' ' '                       \
> $OutFile1
cat $OutFile1


echo; echo "Method of LQ member firstfire"
sed -nr 'H; x; $ba; /\n\n/{:a; s/^\n|\n\n//g;
  s/\n/ /g; s/([^.]+\.) +(.*)/"\1", "\2"/; p; b}; x;' $InFile > $OutFile2
cat $OutFile2

echo; echo "Method of LQ moderator colucix"
awk 'BEGIN { RS = "\n\n\n" }
{
  gsub(/^|$/,"\"")
  sub(/\n+"$/,"\"")
  $0 = gensub(/\n([^\n]+"$)/,"\",\"\\1","g")
  gsub(/\n/," ")
  sub(/$/,"\n")
  print
}' $InFile > $OutFile3
cat $OutFile3

echo; echo "Method of LQ Senior Member ntubski"
awk -F\\n -vRS='\n(\n\n|$)' -vQ=\" '{a=$NF;NF--;$0=Q$0Q","Q a Q}1' $InFile > $OutFile4
cat $OutFile4

echo; echo "Normal end of job."; echo
exit

One or more
lines of text immediately followed by.
The author name on one line.
[Two line] # looks like
[breaks.]  # 2 empty lines

"One or more lines of text immediately followed by.","The author name on one line."
[Line break] # but nobody thought I didn't think this indicated an empty line