"I'm a product of hard work. My game is placements and timing, deep groundstrokes, stepping into the ball. Training the body to obey the mind, as I've done, differs from the more conventional method of getting the mind to obey the body... A baseline game has definition only in the mind of the executioner."
- Chris Evert describing her playing doctrine in her 1982 autobiography, Chrissie

"The funny thing was, people always thought, God, she's just doing the same thing over and over again', when she wasn't doing the same thing over and over again."
- Tennis commentator and former touring pro Mary Carillo, explaining that disguise and subtle shifts were key to Evert's ability to bring opponents undone.

"The worse thing you can do to yourself is to beat Chris, because the next time she plays you, she goes out of her way to make it her business to really show you who's boss."
- Virginia Wade, who upset Evert in the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1977… and then lost the next 17 times they met.

"Chrissie hit bombs, and don't let anyone say otherwise, don't let anyone think she played patty-cake."
- Renee Richards, one-time coach to Navratilova, quoted in Johnette Howard's The Rivals.

"She was an assassin that dressed just nice and said the right things and meanwhile just cut you to shreds."
- Fellow American great and TV colleague John McEnroe.

"Our most gracious champion."
- Ted Tinling, who designed many of the dresses that helped cultivate Evert's image.

"Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills brought women's tennis from the social arena to the center stage of sports. Maureen Connolly introduced the youthful spirit, and Billie Jean King proved that women could be winners. Chris Evert proved that winners could be women."
- Journalist Neil Amdur, in the foreword to Chrissie

"No matter how catty we get with each other in private or public, I still have a closeness with her that I will never have with another human being because of what we went through together, on and off the court."
- Martina Navratilova, quoted in London newspaper The Times in 1999, a decade after Evert's retirement.