Here’s the full conversation where the concept of Citizens of the Outside is described.
“And you will teach me how—how to be a successful crook like you!”
His brow furrowed at my words and his expression was grave. What had I said that was wrong? I chewed my sore lip with worry as he unrolled his bedroll in silence, spread it out then sat upon it crosslegged. When at last he spoke I hung upon his every word.
“Now your first lesson, Jim. I am not a crook. You are not a crook. We do not want to be criminals for they are all individuals who are stupid and inefficient. It is important to comprehend and appreciate that we stand outside of society and follow strict rules of our own, some of them even stricter than those of the society that we have rejected, It can be a lonely life—but it is a life you must choose with your eyes open. And once the choice has been made you must abide by it. You must be more moral than they are because you will be living by a stricter moral code. And this code does not contain the word ‘crook.’ That is their word for what you are and you must reject it.”
“But I want to be a criminal. . . .”
“Abandon the thought—and the title. It is, and you must excuse me saying it, a juvenile ambition. It is only your emotional striking out at the world you dislike and cannot be considered a reasoned decision. You have rejected them—but at the same time accepted their description of what you are. A crook. You are not a crook, I am not a crook.”
“Then—what are we?” I asked, all eagerness. The Bishop steepled his fingers as he intoned the answer.
“We are Citizens of the Outside. We have rejected the simplistic, boring, regimented, bureaucratic, moral, and ethical scriptures by which they live. In their place we have substituted our own far superior ones. We may physically move among them-but we are not of them. Where they are lazy, we are industrious. Where they are immoral, we are moral. Where they are liars, we are the Truth. We are probably the greatest power for good to the society that we have discarded.”
Jim DiGriz and The Bishop, A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born, Harry Harrison