No escape slash example (it gave me an error and wouldn't show on the page if I did it without an escape slash, so I just dropped the quotes for this one):

My mom asked me, What is your favorite dessert?
I replied, Carrot cake

Escape slash example:

My mom asked me, "What is your favorite dessert?"
I replied, "Carrot cake"

In php, the escape slash allows you to print quotes (for dialogue or other purposes) without it getting confused with the quotes that are used in normal php syntax. It does this by "escaping" the second set of quotes and just printing it instead of interpreting it.