escape single and double quotes

I'm working with a Python program to insert / update textual data into a
PostgreSQL database. The text has single and double quotes in it, and I
wonder: What is the easiest way to escape quotes in Python, similar to
the Perlism "$str =~ s/(['"])/\\$1/g;"?

I tried the re.escape() method, but it escapes far too much, including
spaces and accented characters. I only want to escape single and double
quotes, everything else should be acceptable to the database.
-- 
Leif Biberg Kristensen
http://solumslekt.org/