Scripts are programs or sequences of instructions that are interpreted by another program rather than directly by the processor. Popular scripting languages include JavaScript, Perl, and VBScript. JavaScript scripts can be used to create dynamic web pages and validate form data. To include JavaScript in an HTML document, the <script> tag is used with type="text/javascript". Variables are containers that store information in JavaScript and can be assigned values using operators like =, +, -, *, /, etc.