The type string is a type used for text:

name = 'Johan Carlsson'
child = "Åsa is Johan Carlsson's daughter"
book = """Aunt Julia 
       and the Scriptwriter"""

A string is enclosed either by single or double quotes. If a string contains several lines, it has to be enclosed by three double quotes """ or three single quotes '''.

Strings can be indexed with simple indexes or slices (refer to Chapter 3, Container Types, for a comprehensive explanation on slices):

book[-1] # returns 'r' 
book[-12:] # returns 'Scriptwriter'

Strings are immutable; that is, items cannot be altered. They share this property with tuples. The command book[1] = 'a' returns:

TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment

The string '\n' is used to insert a line break  and 't' inserts a horizontal tabulator (TAB) into the string to align several lines:

print('Temperature:\t20\tC\nPressure:\t5\tPa')

These strings are examples of escape sequences. Escape sequences always start with a backslash...