Machines Like Me

by Ian McEwan

Factory settings—a contemporary synonym for fate.

I regretted once more that I’d been too late for an Eve.

A man newly in love knows what life is.

paradise on earth was to work all day alone in anticipation of an evening in interesting company.

I couldn’t believe he was capable of being hurt, or of having feelings, or of any sentience at all.

But I couldn’t let a machine have such a hold over me, which was what would happen if I granted it the role of confidant, counsellor, oracle, in my most private affairs.

“The mounted horse did not kill athletics. We run for joy.”

the triumph of the machine could not diminish the game.

His mind, she found countless ways of saying, remained sharp.

We were simply the embodiment of a pattern in modern manners: acquaintance, followed by sex, then friendship, finally love.

The present is the frailest of improbable constructs.

“From a certain point of view, the only solution to suffering would be the complete extinction of humankind.”

Everything good that passed between us—sex, food, movies, new plays—was instigated by me.