PHP Variable in Select Statement

Question

I've written this PHP-Script which is working, and now I want to change the row name into a variable to (not sure if row is correct), I mean the "name" from the select name... I've tried nearly everything, but nothing gave me the right result. I know that the normal thing how I can use variables in a statement like ("'. $var .'") won't work.

<?php
require_once 'config.php';

$id = $_GET["id"]; //ID OF THE CURRENT CONTACT
$user = $_GET["user"];  //ID OF THE CURRENT USERS

$query = mysql_query("SELECT name FROM contacts WHERE contact_id='". mysql_real_escape_string( $id ) ."' and user_id='1';");

$retval = mysql_fetch_object($query)->name;

$retval = trim($retval);
echo $retval;
?>

Answer 1

This is much easier isn't it?

$sql_insert = 
"INSERT INTO customers (        
`name`,
`address`,
`email`,
`phone`
) 
VALUES (        
'$name',
'$address',     
'$email',
'$phone'
)";