What is the purpose of using backslashes in PHP echo statements?

Using backslashes in PHP echo statements is necessary when you want to include special characters, such as quotes or backslashes themselves, within the echoed string. This is because PHP uses backslashes as escape characters to indicate that the following character should be treated differently. By using backslashes, you can ensure that the special characters are displayed correctly in the output.

echo "This is an example of using backslashes to escape special characters: \"quotes\", \\backslashes\\.";