Best technical approach?

I am working with the AskIt! theme from the wonderful folks at Elegant Themes. I am modifying it to allow users to submit quotes rather than ask questions. Each quote (post) has an author, as well as a user who submitted the quote. The quote author’s name should take the place of the user_nicename shown in the AskIt example. It should have the same functionality as users or
tags or categories – i.e., click on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s name next to his quote, and wordpress should launch a page showing all quotes by Emerson.

I’m wondering the community’s thoughts on the best technical approach? Before I reinvent the wheel, does anyone have experience with a similar project? Is there a plugin that allows me to replicate the users or tags or category tables and functionality?

If there’s no “easy” way, I’m thinking I’ll need to modify the “Submit a Question” page form to allow the user to enter a quote author. On save, the quote author is stored in a new table called wp_qauthor, and is tied to wp_posts using wp_postmeta. Thoughts?

I apologize for my long-windedness, but hopefully that cuts down on back and forth clarification.

Many Thanks!