And how much maintenance you want to do. Me, I use some pretty exotic, expensive stuff, but my knife is the single most important tool for my job so it is quite a bit different for me. You aren't going to need $1500+ of various kinds of knives, but on the other hand, you aren't going to walk out for $50 all day.
Anyway, without going all knife-geek on blade shapes and types of steel and construction methods, I'd suggest a decent Japanese-made, Western-style 8" chef's knife, specifically a Shun Classic along with a simple manual sharpener, $135 out the door. ALWAYS wash it by hand, and give it one or two swipes through the sharpener before you put it away, and it'll last you a lifetime. If that's too rich for you, anything forged from Target or Bed Bath & Beyond beats anything stamped; the most important thing is still to get a sharpener and use it neurotically! If you get a Western knife though, get a Western sharpener - Japanese blades have a much narrower edge so the "Asian" sharpener I linked will mangle a Cuisinart or Chicago Cutlery forged blade.
Now if you want to know what I use, a 270mm Mizuno Tanrejo Akitada Hontanren wa-guyto. It's expensive, difficult to sharpen and maintain, and it handles like nothing else I've ever used:
Also a Togiharu G1 petty knife, there's some things you simply can't do with a chef's knife..
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