Biggest ever newbie question - INSERT

[Eric Dahnke]

Hello kind list,

I'm very new to SQL, sorry if this an inapropriate question.

I created a table as follows.

CREATE TABLE test_table (field1 CHAR(10) NOT NULL,
	field2 CHAR(10) NOT NULL);

When I try to insert data via

INSERT INTO test_table (field1, field2) VALUES (red, blue);

why does MySQL think that red and blue are columns?

ERROR 1054: Unknown column 'red' in 'field list'


(I did notice that I can input numbers instead of red and blue and the
data is accepted)
Many thx, - eric