POZZO
He's stopped crying. (To Estragon.) You have replaced him as it were. (Lyrically.) The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. (He laughs.) Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. (Pause.) Let us not speak well of it either. (Pause.) Let us not speak of it at all. (Pause. Judiciously.) It is true the population has increased. (1.461)
Pozzo tries to dismiss any concerns about the misery of the world with the claim that things have always been this way. Stagnancy has become his excuse for inaction, but as we’ve seen with Gogo and Didi, inaction leads to stagnancy. This likely has something to do with the play’s cyclical nature.
Quote 8
POZZO
But—(hand raised in admonition)—but behind this veil of gentleness and peace, night is charging (vibrantly) and will burst upon us (snaps his fingers) pop! like that! (his inspiration leaves him) just when we least expect it. (Silence. Gloomily.) That's how it is on this b**** of an earth. (1.540)
Just like Vladimir and Estragon, Pozzo moves easily from talking about the physical (in this case, the appearance of the twilight) to the metaphysical or abstract (here, his judgments on "this b**** of an earth"). The variation in these comments makes the subject matter of Waiting for Godot somewhat rare; a combination of the absurdly mundane and the inaccessibly cerebral.
POZZO
(suddenly furious) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (Calmer.) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. (He jerks the rope.) On!
Exeunt Pozzo and Lucky. Vladimir follows them to the edge of the stage, looks after them. The noise of falling, reinforced by mimic of Vladimir, announces that they are down again. Silence. (2.773)
Pozzo’s final line is a lasting image in Waiting for Godot. He paints the picture of a birth taking place literally over a grave; the "gleam" of light he describes is the course of a life, which then presumably falls—dead—into the grave. This dismal outlook—very different from the Pozzo of Act 1—seems to be the result of his going blind, which he says means he can no longer see the workings of time. Now that he can assign no meaning to time, Pozzo finds life fleeting and without purpose.