Я использую regexp:
str = 'Write a program that extracts from a given text all palindromes, e.g. "ABBA", "lamal", "exe".';
var strNew = str.match(/\w+/g);
// Output: ["Write", "a", "program", "that", "extracts", "from", "a", "given", "text", "all", "palindromes", "e", "g", "ABBA", "lamal", "exe"]