I have owned 25 telescopes over the past 51 years, and have tested an awful lot more than that. Distilling all of my experience, I recommend a 10-inch Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount as the absolute best buy for a serious beginner in astronomy. For details, see this article of mine:
http://www.gaherty.ca/tme/TME0702_Buying_a_Telescope.pdf
There are better telescopes available, but they all cost a lot more money than the SkyQuest XT10. For me, it's the perfect combination of optical and mechanical quality while still being reasonably portable and affordable.
To find your way around the sky, I'd recommend two things: a good star atlas, such as the Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas (Sky), and Phil Harrington's book Star Watch (Wiley). A few sessions at an astronomy club's star parties will also help enormously. A 10x50 binocular will also help in working out star hops to various objects.