Textbox text from php

i have a php file that is outputting some html, for example:

<b>ryan:</b> hi

so when you navigate to the page and view its source you basically see what i just typed above.

can i assign the result of this php script to a textbox. or does this text returned by the php need to be assigned to a variable for load vars? like:

output=<b>ryan:</b> hi

thanks