We apply the generalized projective Riccati equations method with the aid of Maple software to construct many new soliton and periodic solutions with parameters for two higher-order nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs), namely, the nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation with fourth-order dispersion and dual power law nonlinearity and the nonlinear quantum Zakharov-Kuznetsov (QZK) equation. The obtained exact solutions include kink and antikink solitons, bell (bright) and antibell (dark) solitary wave solutions, and periodic solutions. The given nonlinear PDEs have been derived and can be reduced to nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using a simple transformation. A comparison of our new results with the well-known results is made. Also, we drew some graphs of the exact solutions using Maple. The given method in this article is straightforward and concise, and it can also be applied to other nonlinear PDEs in mathematical physics.