each time I put /tellraw @a [text] it never works

What I expected to happen was...:
have the text appear in chat

What actually happened was...:
it says in chat in red Invalid json: malformed JSON at line 1 column 1

Steps to Reproduce:
1. use /tellraw [player] [any text]
2. if one uses quotes around the text it says in chat in red
Invalid json: malformed JSON at line 1 column 2