shell interprets quotes as string

Question

I'm new to shell script, so one of the first things to learn is something like:

echo "Hello there"

However, this returns:

"Hello there"

The shell seems to interpret quotes as part of the string.
This is not limited to the echo command, but also, for example: printf or read.

Answer 1

These are not equivalent: ¨ and ". In the shell, use " (34, \x22) for double quotes, not “ or ” etc.