Robert Sheckley

“ The robot would reply dutifully, repeating what had been put on its tape.
"I never saw a good one yet," Mark would say.
"Well, that's not fair. Perhaps you didn't look long enough. There's a girl in the world for every man."
"You're a romantic!" Mark would say scornfully. The robot would pause—a built-in pause—and chuckle a carefully constructed chuckle.
"I dreamed of a girl named Martha once," Charles would say. "Maybe if I would have looked, I would have found her."
And then it would be bedtime. Or perhaps Mark would want more conversation. "What do you think of girls?" ”

“ Mark would spend hours keeping the robot in repair.
"You're getting rusty," he would cackle.
"You're not so young yourself," Charles would reply. He had an answer for almost everything. Nothing involved, but an answer.
It was always night on Martha, but Mark broke up his time into mornings, afternoons and evenings. Their life followed a simple routine. Breakfast, from vegetables and Mark's canned store. Then the robot would work in the fields, and the plants grew used to his touch. Mark would repair the pump, check the water supply, and straighten up the immaculate shack. ”

“ When people talk about getting away from it all, they are usually thinking about our great open spaces out west. But to science fiction writers, that would be practically in the heart of Times Square. When a man of the future wants solitude he picks a slab of rock floating in space four light years east of Andromeda. Here is a gentle little story about a man who sought the solitude of such a location. And who did he take along for company? None other than Charles the Robot.
Mark Rogers was a prospector, and he went to the asteroid belt looking for radioactives and rare metals. ”