Double parenthesis crisis

In the below code the variable $thecomments might have some quotations in it. Like: $thecomments = how you "like me now" I'm trying to display the value of that variable in an input box using the value=" " as shown below; however, the double quotations are screwing me up. Can someone please make some suggestions on how I can fix this. I've tries several combinations.addslashes, value= (no quotations, etc). Thanks. $thecomments = addslashes($row_allitems[6]); // echo $thecomments; // this is the section to list the instructions comments echo "<tr> <td colspan=\"2\" > <div align=\"right\">Instructions/comments:</div></td> <td colspan=\"3\"> <div align=\"left\"> <input name=\"instructionslist[$row_allitems[0]]\" type=\"text\" size=\"50\" maxlength=\"255\" value=$thecomments></td> </div></td> </tr>";