I need help to get my website running!

I have a giant 800 page PHP book, but it will take me forever to read through and figure out how to do what I want. I just want to get it running and making a little money, then I can afford to pay a programmer to clean up the code for me. In the meantime, I just need a little guidance towards the basic functions, etc. to use to get me started, and I can look up the specifics on their usage. Any help is appreciated!

I am trying to put together a website that basically consists of a multiple choice questionnaire. The user can then pay, and a response will be sent based on the answers to each of their questions. Each answer will be associated with a standard response.

I want to just set up the payments through paypal.

If someone can just describe the basic concepts to me, I can figure it out. I just can't figure them out from scratch and a huge manual.