Thanks for the response. I have a few more questions...

Is the syntax "SELECT 'a' AS column1 from RDB$DATABASE" standard SQL? Does the ANSI standard have any specifications for selecting a "variable"?

Regarding the last question, how would I "declare" this variable in the "query analyzer" in FlameRobin? (this is not a stored procedure, it is just a "query" that is executed from the "query analyzer")
I tried the following but it did not work:
DECLARE somevariable INT;
SELECT somevariable FROM RDB$Database;